Biography of Francois-Rene De Chateaubriand

L'enchanteur

4 September 1768
4 July 1848
Chateaubriand, born in Rennes (French Brittany) on 4 September 1768, has become one of the most famous writers of French literature. Descended from a Breton noble family, began at an early age to the military career and, in Paris, he witnessed the first revolutionary events. Are social turmoil that they see initially participate so detached and skeptical, in compliance with the already pronounced conservatism he flaunted. In 1791 travels in North America, helpful to open his mind and stimulate a fertile comparison between other cultures, other places and the motherland.
Back in France, begins to take on a much more active stance with regard to politics, much to join the counterrevolutionary forces in defense of the status quo and the monarchical organisation of society. But the French revolution is an unstoppable event that all drag, a violent history and feverish motion, making progressive waves lever triggered by the defenders of reason and social progress. Conservatives like him find themselves so soon in dire straits. The writer is then forced to flee to England, where he lived in practice from exile for seven years (from 1793 to 1800). The withdrawal of London is the harbinger of new inspiration and hard work.
In 1797 published the "historical essay on the revolutions", despite all the enlightenment spirit that permeated the eighteenth century (in fact the emphasis is on the history), but not without traces of a religious restlessness that shortly afterwards, in the days of spiritual crisis that followed the death of his mother and sister, led him to embrace the lost faith of childhood. The next opera "the genius of Christianity", begun in the last year of exile and completed after his return to Paris, reflecting the way of Chauteaubriand filet to literary talent in the service of the Christian faith, defending it from the attacks of voltairianesimo and illustrating poetic and moral beauty. Participate in that drawing more philosophical literary the two short novels that Chateaubriand included in the opera "Atala", which tells the love story of two Indians of Louisiana with the intention of showing the harmonies of religion with scenes of nature and the passions of the human heart, and "Rene", which through the story autobiographical protagonist's young years covertly condemns indeterminate passions and the barren reveries which led Rene to a life of boredom and loneliness.
"The genius of Christianity" gained the approval of the General French who was returning to the traditional faith in those years after the storm, while in the melancholic Renè loved recognize the first generations. To demonstrate the superiority of the "wonderful Christian" on the "wonderful pagano" Chateaubriand wrote then the epic in prose "martyrs" (1809), having traveled to Greece and the Holy land to better read up on places of the narrative, set in the time of the persecutions of Diocletian. Notes and travel impressions, gathered in the "Itinerary from Paris to Gernsalemme", managed a brisk and not aggravated by EPIC and apologetic intent; It took King moves, moreover, by a tradition of literary relations on the East. Rich in exotic suggestions and upside are also three operas written years earlier: "the adventures of the last Abencerage", "the Natchez" (published both in 1826), and the "journey into America" released the year after.
Appointed peers of France after the return of bums, Chateaubriand took an active part in the political life of the restoration, holding important diplomatic assignments and Government, but resigned from the House in 1830, with the advent of the July monarchy. He retired to private life, he devoted himself to the development of the "memories of the underworld" (composed in his later years), passionate evocation of his life within the framework of a tormented historic period. The industrious maturity, comforted by the friendship of Mme Recamier, also expected a minor historical works and a "life of Rancé" where Chauteabriand, tracing the life of a religious of the seventeenth century, its image, its illusions and disappointments. Featuring an elegant pen and strongly suggestive, led by a very strong sense of the idea of beauty, Chauteabriand exerted a strong influence on the literature of the nineteenth century, announcing trends and reasons for a great fortune in the 19th century romantic. He died in Paris on 4 July 1848.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.