Théophile Gautier

Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier (US: goh-TYAY; French: [pjɛʁ ʒyl teɔfil ɡotje]; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic.

While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and remains a point of reference for many subsequent literary traditions such as Parnassianism, Symbolism, Decadence and Modernism. He was widely esteemed by writers as disparate as Balzac, Baudelaire, the Goncourt brothers, Flaubert, Pound, Eliot, James, Proust and Wilde.

Gautier was born on 30 August 1811 in Tarbes, capital of Hautes-Pyrénées département (southwestern France). His father was Jean-Pierre Gautier, a fairly cultured minor government official, and his mother was Antoinette-Adelaïde Cocard. The family moved to Paris in 1814, taking up residence in the ancient Marais district.

Gautier's education commenced at the prestigious Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris, which he attended for three months before being brought home due to illness. Although he completed the remainder of his education at Collège Charlemagne, Gautier's most significant instruction, including in Latin, came from his father.

While at school, Gautier befriended Gérard de Nerval and the two became lifelong friends. It is through Nerval that Gautier was introduced to Victor Hugo, by then already a leading dramatist. Hugo became a major influence on Gautier. It was at the legendary premiere of Hugo's Hernani that Gautier is remembered for wearing his anachronistic red doublet.

In the aftermath of the 1830 Revolution, Gautier's family experienced hardship and was forced to move to the outskirts of Paris. Deciding to experiment with his own independence and freedom, Gautier chose to stay with friends in the Doyenné district of Paris.

Towards the end of 1830, Gautier began to frequent meetings of Le Petit Cénacle (The Little Art Circle), a group of artists who met in the studio of Jehan Du Seigneur. The group was a more irresponsible version of Hugo's Cénacle. Among its members were the artists Gérard de Nerval, Alexandre Dumas, père, Petrus Borel, Alphonse Brot, and Philothée O’Neddy. Le Petit Cénacle soon gained a reputation for extravagance and eccentricity.

The young Gautier's appearance was "flamboyant…defying conventionality by his flowing hair and far-famed scarlet waistcoat."

In his youth, according to Edgar Saltus, Gautier was dashing, athletic, amorous, and mercurial:He was tall and robust; his hair was a wayward flood; his eyes were blue and victorious. He was the image of Young France. His strength was proverbial; he outdid Dante; he swam from Marseilles to the Chateau d’If, and then swam back. [...] women fell in love with him at once.

In many of Gautier's works, the subject is less important than the pleasure of telling the story. He favoured a provocative yet refined style. This list links each year of publication with its corresponding "[year] in poetry" article, for poetry, or "[year] in literature" article for other works):

Poésies, published in 1830, is a collection of 42 poems that Gautier composed at the age of 18. However, as the publication took place during the July Revolution, no copies were sold and it was eventually withdrawn. In 1832, the collection was reissued with 20 additional poems under the name Albertus. Another edition in 1845 included revisions of some of the poems. The poems are written in a wide variety of verse forms and show that Gautier attempts to imitate other, more established Romantic poets such as Sainte-Beuve, Alphonse de Lamartine, and Hugo, before Gautier eventually found his own way by becoming a critic of Romantic excesses.

Albertus, written in 1831 and published in 1832, is a long narrative poem of 122 stanzas, each consisting of 12 lines of alexandrine (12-syllable) verse, except for the last line of each stanza, which is octosyllabic. Albertus is a parody of Romantic literature, especially of tales of the macabre and the supernatural. The poem tells the story of an ugly witch who magically transforms at midnight into an alluring young woman. Albertus, the hero, falls deeply in love and agrees to sell his soul.

Les Jeunes-France ("The Jeunes-France: Tales Told with Tongue in Cheek"), published in 1833, was a satire of Romanticism. In 1831, the newspaper Le Figaro featured a number of works by the young generation of Romantic artists and published them in the Jeunes-France.

La Comédie de la Mort (Fr), published in 1838, is a period piece much like Albertus. In this work, Gautier focuses on the theme of death, which for Gautier is a terrifying, stifling and irreversible finality. Unlike many Romantics before him, Gautier's vision of death is solemn and portentous, proclaiming death as the definitive escape from life's torture. During the time he wrote the work, Gautier was frequenting many cemeteries, which were then expanding rapidly to accommodate the many deaths from epidemics that swept the country. Gautier translates death into a curiously heady, voluptuous, almost exhilarating experience which diverts him momentarily from the gruesome reality and conveys his urgent plea for light over darkness, life over death. Several of these poems have been set as melodies by composers such as Berlioz, Bizet, Fauré, and Duparc.

España (1845) is usually considered the transitional volume between the two phases of Gautier's poetic career. Inspired by the author's summer 1840 visit to Spain, the 43 miscellaneous poems in the collection cover topics including the Spanish language and aspects of Spanish culture and traditions such as music and dance.

Gautier did not consider himself to be a dramatist but more of a poet and storyteller. His plays were limited because of the time in which he lived; during the Revolution of 1848, many theatres were closed down and therefore plays were scarce. Most of the plays that dominated the mid-century were written by playwrights who insisted on conformity and conventional formulas and catered to cautious middle-class audiences. As a result, most of Gautier's plays were never published or reluctantly accepted.

Between the years 1839 and 1850, Gautier wrote all or part of nine different plays:

Regardez mais ne touchez pas (1847) — written less by Gautier than his collaborators.

Pierrot en Espagne (1847) — Gautier's authorship is uncertain.

L'Amour souffle où il veut (1850) — not completed

Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835) In September 1833, Gautier was solicited to write a historical romance based on the life of French opera star Mlle. Maupin, who was a first-rate swordswoman and often went about disguised as a man. Originally, the story was to be about the historical La Maupin, who set fire to a convent for the love of another woman, but later retired to a convent herself, shortly before dying in her thirties. Gautier instead turned the plot into a simple love triangle between a man, d'Albert, and his mistress, Rosette, who both fall in love with Madelaine de Maupin, who is disguised as a man named Théodore. The message behind Gautier's version of the infamous legend is the fundamental pessimism about the human identity, and perhaps the entire Romantic age. The novel consists of seventeen chapters, most in the form of letters written by d'Albert or Madelaine. Most critics focus on the preface of the novel, which preached about art for art's sake through its dictum that "everything useful is ugly".

Eldorado, ou Fortunio (1837) Serialized in Le Figaro in 1837; published as a book in 1838. Translated as Fortunio by 1907. An absurdist, decadent, and Orientalist fantasy story that takes place in Paris and revolves around the mysterious man Fortunio, raised in India, and his French love Musidora.

Le Roman de La Momie (1858) Translated as The Romance of a Mummy in 1863. A historical novel set in Ancient Egypt, which features the Biblical Exodus.

Captain Fracasse (1863) This book was promised to the public in 1836 but was finally published in 1863. The novel represents a different era and is a project that Gautier had wanted to complete earlier in his youth. It is centered on a soldier named Fracasse whose adventures portray bouts of chivalry, courage and a sense of adventure. Gautier places the story in his favourite historical era, that of Louis XIII. It is best described as a typical cloak-and-dagger fairy tale where everyone lives happily ever after.

La Morte Amoureuse (1836) Classic tale of the supernatural in which a priest receives nocturnal visitations from a female vampire. Reprinted by Valde Books as Clarimonde.

One of Cleopatra's Nights and Other Fantastic Romances (1882) Collection of six of his short stories in English translation by Lafcadio Hearn.

The travels of Théophile Gautier – 4 Volumes.

Two poems from "Émaux et camées"—"Sur les lagunes" and the second of two titled "Études de Mains"—are featured in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dorian reads them out of the book shortly after Basil Hallward's murder.

Swiss-German composer Dagmar Rybner used Gautier's text for her song "Chinoiserie."

Ernest Fanelli's Tableaux Symphoniques are based on Gautier's novel Le Roman de la Momie.

In Peter Whiffle by Carl Van Vechten, the main character Peter Whiffle cites Gautier as a great influence and writer, among others.