Honor de Balzac

Balzac redirects here.

(disambiguation).

For other uses, see Balzac 1.1

Family

Honor de Balzac was born into a family which had struggled nobly to achieve respectability. His father, born
Bernard-Franois Balssa,[2] was one of eleven children
from a poor family in Tarn, a region in the south of
France. In 1760 he set o for Paris with only a louis coin
in his pocket, determined to improve his social standing;
by 1776 he had become Secretary to the Kings Council and a Freemason (he had also changed his name to
the more noble sounding Balzac, his son later adding
without any ocial causethe nobiliary particle de).[3]
After the Reign of Terror (179394), he was sent to Tours
to coordinate supplies for the Army.[4]

[1]

Honor de Balzac (/blzk, bl-/; French: [.n.e

d() bal.zak]; 20 May 1799 18 August 1850) was a
French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was
a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comdie humaine, which presents a panorama of
French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon
Bonaparte.
Owing to his keen observation of detail and unltered
representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of
the founders of realism in European literature. He
is renowned for his multifaceted characters, who are
morally ambiguous. His writing inuenced many subsequent novelists such as Marcel Proust, mile Zola,
Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Edgar Allan Poe,
Ea de Queirs, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Oscar Wilde,
Gustave Flaubert, Benito Prez Galds, Marie Corelli,
Henry James, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, and Italo
Calvino, and philosophers such as Friedrich Engels and
Karl Marx. Many of Balzacs works have been made into
or have inspired lms, and they are a continuing source
of inspiration for writers, lmmakers and critics.

Balzacs mother, born Anne-Charlotte-Laure Sallambier,

came from a family of haberdashers in Paris. Her familys wealth was a considerable factor in the match: she
was eighteen at the time of the wedding, and BernardFranois fty.[5] As British writer and critic V. S. Pritchett explained, She was certainly drily aware that she had
been given to an old husband as a reward for his professional services to a friend of her family and that the capital
was on her side. She was not in love with her husband.[6]
Honor (named after Saint Honor of Amiens, who is
commemorated on 16 May, four days before Balzacs
birthday) was actually the second child born to the
Balzacs; exactly one year previous, Louis-Daniel had
been born, but he lived for only a month. Honor's sisters
Laure and Laurence were born in 1800 and 1802, and his
brother Henry-Franois in 1807.[7][8]

An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child,

Balzac had trouble adapting to the teaching style of
his grammar school. His willful nature caused trouble
throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. When he nished school,
Balzac was an apprentice in a law oce, but he turned his
back on the study of law after wearying of its inhumanity and banal routine. Before and during his career as a
writer, he attempted to be a publisher, printer, business- 1.2 Early life
man, critic, and politician; he failed in all of these eorts.
La Comdie humaine reects his real-life diculties, and As an infant Balzac was sent to a wet-nurse; the following
year he was joined by his sister Laure and they spent four
includes scenes from his own experience.
years away from home.[9] (Although Genevan philosoBalzac suered from health problems throughout his life,
pher Jean-Jacques Rousseau's inuential book mile conpossibly brought on by scant attention to proper nutrition,
vinced many mothers of the time to nurse their own
strict nightly rest, or daily heart-healthy exercise. His
children, sending babies to wet-nurses was still common
relationship with his family was often strained by nanamong the middle and upper classes.) When the Balzac
cial and personal diculties, and he ended several friendchildren returned home, they were kept at a frigid disships over critical reviews. In 1850 he married Ewelina
tance by their parents, which aected the author-to-be
Haska, his longtime love; he died ve months later.
signicantly. His 1835 novel Le Lys dans la Valle features a cruel governess named Miss Caroline, modeled
after his own caregiver.[10]

At age ten Balzac was sent to the Oratorian grammar

school in Vendme, where he studied for seven years.
His father, seeking to instill the same hardscrabble work

Biography
1

1 BIOGRAPHY
condition to intellectual congestion, but his extended
connement in the alcove was surely a factor. (Meanwhile, his father had been writing a treatise on the means
of preventing thefts and murders, and of restoring the
men who commit them to a useful role in society, in
which he heaped disdain on prison as a form of crime
prevention.)[18]
In 1814 the Balzac family moved to Paris, and Honor
was sent to private tutors and schools for the next two
and a half years. This was an unhappy time in his life,
during which he attempted suicide on a bridge over the
Loire River.[19]
In 1816 Balzac entered the Sorbonne, where he studied
under three famous professors. Franois Guizot, who
later became Prime Minister, was Professor of Modern
History. Abel-Franois Villemain, a recent arrival from
the Collge Charlemagne, lectured on French and classical
literature. Andmost inuential of allVictor Cousin's
courses on philosophy encouraged his students to think
independently.[20]

Once his studies were completed, Balzac was persuaded

by his father to follow him into the law; for three years he
trained and worked at the oce of Victor Passez, a family friend. During this time Balzac began to understand
The Oratorian grammar school in Vendmeengraving by A.
the vagaries of human nature. In his 1840 novel Le NoQueyroy
taire, he wrote that a young person in the legal profession
sees the oily wheels of every fortune, the hideous wranethic which had gained him the esteem of society, in- gling of heirs over corpses not yet cold, the human heart
tentionally gave little spending money to the boy. This grappling with the Penal Code.[21]
made him the object of ridicule among his much wealthier schoolmates.[11][12]
Balzac had diculty adapting to the rote style of learning at the school. As a result, he was frequently sent
to the alcove, a punishment cell reserved for disobedient students.[13] (The janitor at the school, when asked
later if he remembered Honor, replied: Remember M.
Balzac? I should think I do! I had the honour of escorting him to the dungeon more than a hundred times!")[14]
Still, his time alone gave the boy ample freedom to read
every book which came his way.
Balzac worked these scenes from his boyhoodas he did
many aspects of his life and the lives of those around
himinto La Comdie Humaine. His time at Vendme
is reected in Louis Lambert, his 1832 novel about a
young boy studying at an Oratorian grammar school at
Vendme. The narrator says : He devoured books of
every kind, feeding indiscriminately on religious works,
history and literature, philosophy and physics. He had
told me that he found indescribable delight in reading dictionaries for lack of other books.[15]
Balzac often fell ill, nally causing the headmaster to
contact his family with news of a sort of a coma.[16]
When he returned home, his grandmother said: "Voil
donc comme le collge nous renvoie les jolis que nous lui
envoyons!" (Look how the academy returns the pretty
ones we send them!")[17] Balzac himself attributed his

Drawing of Balzac in the mid-1820s, attributed to Achille Devria

In 1819 Passez oered to make Balzac his successor, but

his apprentice had had enough of the law. He despaired
of being a clerk, a machine, a riding-school hack, eating and drinking and sleeping at xed hours. I should

1.4

Une bonne spculation

be like everyone else. And thats what they call living, element of social order.[33][34]
that life at the grindstone, doing the same thing over and
over again.... I am hungry and nothing is oered to appease my appetite.[22] He announced his intention to be
a writer.
The loss of this opportunity caused serious discord in the
Balzac household, although Honor was not turned away
entirely. Instead, in April 1819 he was allowed to live in
the French capitalas English critic George Saintsbury
describes it"in a garret furnished in the most Spartan
fashion, with a starvation allowance and an old woman to
look after him, while the rest of the family moved to a
house twenty miles [32 km] outside Paris.[23]

1.3

First literary eorts

Balzacs rst project was a libretto for a comic opera

called Le Corsaire, based on Lord Byron's The Corsair.
Realizing he would have trouble nding a composer, however, he turned to other pursuits.
In 1820 Balzac completed the ve-act verse tragedy
Cromwell. Although it pales in comparison to later works,
some critics consider it a quality text.[24][25] When he nished, Balzac went to Villeparisis and read the entire work
to his family; they were unimpressed.[26] He followed this
eort by starting (but never nishing) three novels: Stnie,
Laure Junot, Duchess of Abrants
Falthurne, and Corsino.
In 1821 Balzac met the enterprising Auguste Lepoitevin,
who convinced the author to write short stories, which
Lepoitevin would then sell to publishers. Balzac quickly
turned to longer works, and by 1826 he had written nine
novels, all published under pseudonyms and often produced in collaboration with other writers.[27] For example, the scandalous novel Vicaire des Ardennes (1822)
banned for its depiction of nearly-incestuous relations
and, more egregiously, of a married priestattributed to
a 'Horace de Saint-Aubin'.[28] These books were potboiler
novels, designed to sell quickly and titillate audiences.
In Saintsburys view, They are curiously, interestingly,
almost enthrallingly bad.[29] Saintsbury indicates that
Robert Louis Stevenson tried to dissuade him from reading these early works of Balzac.[30] American critic
Samuel Rogers, however, notes that without the training they gave Balzac, as he groped his way to his mature
conception of the novel, and without the habit he formed
as a young man of writing under pressure, one can hardly
imagine his producing La Comdie Humaine.[31] Biographer Graham Robb suggests that as he discovered the
Novel, Balzac discovered himself.[32]
During this time Balzac wrote two pamphlets in support of primogeniture and the Society of Jesus. The
latter, regarding the Jesuit order, illustrated his lifelong
admiration for the Catholic Church. In the preface to
La Comdie Humaine he wrote: Christianity, above all,
Catholicism, being...a complete system for the repression
of the depraved tendencies of man, is the most powerful

1.4

Une bonne spculation

In the late 1820s Balzac dabbled in several business ventures, a penchant his sister blamed on the temptation of
an unknown neighbor.[35] His rst venture was a publishing enterprise which turned out cheap one-volume editions of French classics including the works of Molire.
This business failed miserably, with many of the books
sold as waste paper.[36] Balzac had better luck publishing the memoirs of Laure Junot, Duchess of Abrants
with whom he also had an aair.[37]
Balzac borrowed money from his family and friends, and
tried to build a printing business, then a typefounder enterprise. His inexperience and lack of capital caused his
ruin in these trades. He gave the businesses to a friend
(who made them successful) but carried the debts for
many years.[36] As of April 1828 Balzac owed 50,000
francs to his mother.[38]
Balzac never lost his penchant for une bonne spculation.
It resurfaced painfully later whenas a renowned and
busy authorhe traveled to Sardinia in the hopes of reprocessing the slag from the Roman mines in that country.
Near the end of his life Balzac was captivated by the idea
of cutting 20,000 acres (81 km2 ) of oak wood in Ukraine
and transporting it for sale in France.[36]

1.5

1 BIOGRAPHY

La Comdie Humaine and literary suc- the nobiliary particle. A symbolic inheritance.[42] Just
as his father had worked his way up from poverty into
cess

Main article: La Comdie Humaine

After writing several novels, in 1832 Balzac conceived
the idea for an enormous series of books that would paint
a panoramic portrait of all aspects of society. When the
idea struck, he raced to his sisters apartment and proclaimed: I am about to become a genius.[39] Although
he originally called it Etudes des Murs (Study of Mores),
it eventually became known as La Comdie Humaine, and
he included in it all the ction that he had published in his
lifetime under his own name. This was to be Balzacs life
work and his greatest achievement.

respectable society, Balzac considered toil and eort his

real mark of nobility.

When the July Revolution overthrew Charles X in 1830,

Balzac declared himself a Legitimist, supporting Charles
House of Bourbonbut with qualications. He felt that
the new July Monarchy (which claimed widespread popular support) was disorganized and unprincipled, in need
of a mediator to keep the political peace between the
King and insurgent forces. He called for a young and
vigorous man who belongs neither to the Directoire nor to
the Empire, but who is 1830 incarnate....[43] He planned
to be such a candidate, appealing especially to the higher
classes in Chinon. But after a near-fatal accident in 1832
(he slipped and cracked his head on the street), Balzac
decided not to stand for election.[44]

Balzacs house in Paris, seen from the Rue Berton. Today the
Maison de Balzac is one of Pariss three literary museums.

After the collapse of his businesses, Balzac traveled to

Brittany and stayed with the de Pommereul family outside Fougres. There he drew inspiration for Les Chouans
(1829), a tale of love gone wrong amid the Chouan
royalist forces.[27] Although Balzac was a supporter of
the crown, Balzac paints the counter-revolutionaries in a
sympathetic lighteven though they are the center of the
books most brutal scenes. This was the rst book Balzac
released under his own name, and it gave him what one
critic called passage into the Promised Land.[40] It es- Caricature of Balzac by Nadar in 1850
tablished him as an author of note (even if the surface
owes a debt to Walter Scott) and provided him with a 1831 saw the success of La Peau de Chagrin (The Wild
name outside his past pseudonyms.
Asss Skin or The Magic Skin), a fable-like tale about a
Soon afterwards, around the time of his fathers death, despondent young man named Raphal de Valentin who
Balzac wrote El Verdugoabout a 30-year-old man who nds an animal skin which promises great power and
kills his father (Balzac was 30 years old at the time). This wealth. He obtains these things, but loses the ability to
was the rst work signed Honor de Balzac. Like his manage them. In the end, his health fails and he is confather, he added the aristocratic-sounding particle to help sumed by his own confusion. Balzac meant the story to
the treacherous turns of life, its serpenhim t into respected society, but it was a choice based bear witness to
[45]
tine
motion.
on skill, not birthright. The aristocracy and authority of
talent are more substantial than the aristocracy of names
and material power, he wrote in 1830.[41] The timing of
the decision was also signicant; as Robb explained: The
disappearance of the father coincides with the adoption of

In 1833 Balzac released Eugnie Grandet, his rst bestselling novel.[46] The tale of a young lady who inherits
her fathers miserliness, it also became the most critically
acclaimed book of his career. The writing is simple, yet

1.7

Sentimental life

the individuals (especially the bourgeois title character) then rose and wrote for many hours, fueled by innumerare dynamic and complex.[47]
able cups of black coee. He would often work for fLe Pre Goriot (Old Father Goriot, 1835) was his next suc- teen hours or more at a stretch; he claimed to have once
for 48 hours with only three hours of rest in the
cess, in which Balzac transposes the story of King Lear worked [55]
middle.
to 1820s Paris in order to rage at a society bereft of all
love save the love of money. The centrality of a father
in this novel matches Balzacs own positionnot only as
mentor to his troubled young secretary, Jules Sandeau,[48]
but also the fact that he had fathered a child, MarieCaroline Du Fresnay, with his otherwise-married lover,
Maria Du Fresnay, who had been his source of inspiration for Eugnie Grandet.[49]
In 1836 Balzac took the helm of the Chronique de Paris,
a weekly magazine of society and politics. He tried to enforce strict impartiality in its pages and a reasoned assessment of various ideologies.[50] As Rogers notes, Balzac
was interested in any social, political, or economic theory, whether from the right or the left.[51] The magazine
failed, but in July 1840 he founded another publication,
the Revue Parisienne. It lasted for three issues.[52]
These dismal business eortsand his misadventures in
Sardiniaprovided an appropriate milieu in which to set
the two-volume Illusions Perdues (Lost Illusions, 1843).
The novel concerns Lucien de Rubempr, a young poet
trying to make a name for himself, who becomes trapped
in the morass of societys darkest contradictions. Luciens journalism work is informed by Balzacs own failed
ventures in the eld.[50] Splendeurs et misres des courtisanes (The Harlot High and Low, 1847) continues Luciens story. He is trapped by the Abb Herrera (Vautrin)
in a convoluted and disastrous plan to regain social status. The book undergoes a massive temporal rift; the rst
part (of four) covers a span of six years, while the nal
two sections focus on just three days.[53]
Le Cousin Pons (1847) and La Cousine Bette (1848) tell
the story of Les Parents Pauvres (The Poor Relations).
The conniving and wrangling over wills and inheritances
reect the expertise gained by the author as a young law
clerk. Balzacs health was deteriorating by this point,
making the completion of this pair of books a signicant
accomplishment.[54]
Many of his novels were initially serialized, like those of
Dickens. Their length was not predetermined. Illusions
Perdues extends to a thousand pages after starting inauspiciously in a small-town print shop, whereas La Fille aux
yeux d'or (The Girl with the Golden Eyes, 1835) opens
with a broad panorama of Paris but becomes a closely
plotted novella of only fty pages.

1.6

Work habits

Balzacs work habits are legendaryhe did not work

quickly, but toiled with an incredible focus and dedication. His preferred method was to eat a light meal at
ve or six in the afternoon, then sleep until midnight. He

First page of the rst proofs of Batrix

Balzac revised obsessively, covering printers proofs with

changes and additions to be reset. He sometimes repeated
this process during the publication of a book, causing signicant expense for both himself and the publisher.[56]
As a result, the nished product was frequently quite different from the original book. While some of his books
never reached a nished state, some of thosesuch as Les
employs (The Government Clerks, 1841)are nonetheless noted by critics.[57]
Although Balzac was by turns a hermit and a
vagrant,[58] he managed to stay connected to the social
world which nourished his writing. He was friends with
Thophile Gautier and Pierre-Marie-Charles de Bernard
du Grail de la Villette, and he knew Victor Hugo. Nevertheless, he did not spend as much time in salons and
clubs as did many of his characters. In the rst place
he was too busy, explains Saintsbury, in the second he
would not have been at home there.... [H]e felt it was
his business not to frequent society but to create it.[59]
Nonetheless he often spent long periods at Chteau de
Sach, near Tours, the home of his friend Jean de Margonne, his mothers lover and father to her youngest child.
Many of Balzacs tormented characters were created in
the small second-oor bedroom. Today the Chteau is a
museum dedicated to the authors life.

1.7 Sentimental life

In 1833, as he revealed in a letter to his sister, Balzac entered into a secret aair,[60] with fellow writer Maria Du
Fresnay, who was then 24. Her marriage with a considerably older man had been a failure from the start.[61] In this
letter, Balzac also reveals that the young woman had just
come to tell him she was pregnant with him. In 1834,
8 months after the event, Maria Du Fresnay's daughter

6
with Balzac, Marie-Caroline Du Fresnay, was born. This
revelation from French journalist Roger Pierrot in 1955
conrmed what was already suspected by several historians: the dedicatee of the novel Eugenie Grandet, a certain
Maria, was Maria Du Fresnay herself.
In February 1832 Balzac received a letter from Odessa
lacking a return address and signed only by "L'trangre"
(The Foreigner)expressing sadness at the cynicism
and atheism in La Peau de Chagrin and its negative portrayal of women. He responded by purchasing a classied
advertisement in the Gazette de France, hoping that his
anonymous critic would nd it. Thus began a fteen-year
correspondence between Balzac and the object of [his]
sweetest dreams": Ewelina Haska.[62]

1 BIOGRAPHY
they drove from her estate in Wierzchownia (village of
Verkhivnia) to a church in Berdyczw (city of Berdychiv,
today in Ukraine) and were married. The ten-hour journey to and from the ceremony took a toll on both husband
and wife: her feet were too swollen to walk, and he endured severe heart trouble.[67]
Although he married late in life, Balzac had already written two treatises on marriage: Physiologie du Mariage
and Scnes de la Vie Conjugale. These works suered
from a lack of rsthand knowledge; Saintsbury points
out that Clebs cannot talk of [marriage] with much
authority.[68] In late April the newly-weds set o for
Paris. His health deteriorated on the way, and Ewelina
wrote to her daughter about Balzac being in a state of
extreme weakness and sweating profusely.[69] They
arrived in the French capital on 20 May, his fty-rst
birthday.[70]

Portrait of Ewelina Haska by Holz von Sowgen (1825)

Haska was married to a man twenty years her senior,

Wacaw Haski, a wealthy Polish landowner living near
Kiev. It had been a marriage of convenience to preserve
her familys fortune. In Balzac Ewelina found a kindred
spirit for her emotional and social desires, with the added
benet of feeling a connection to the glamorous capital
of France.[63] Their correspondence reveals an intriguing
balance of passion, propriety and patience; Robb says it
is like an experimental novel in which the female pro- Balzacs monument at Cimetire du Pre-Lachaise
tagonist is always trying to pull in extraneous realities but
which the hero is determined to keep on course, whatever Five months after his wedding, on 18 August, Balzac
died. His mother was the only one with him when he
tricks he has to use.[64]
[71]
Wacaw Haski died in 1841, and his widow and her ad- expired; Mme. Haska had gone to bed. He had been
served as pallmirer nally had the chance to pursue their aections. visited that day by Victor Hugo, who later
[72][73]
eulogist
at
Balzacs
funeral.
bearer
and
Competing with the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt,
Balzac visited her in St. Petersburg in 1843 and impressed himself on her heart.[65] After a series of economic setbacks, health problems, and prohibitions from
the Tsar, the couple were nally able to wed.[66] On
14 March 1850, with Balzacs health in serious decline,

Balzac was buried at the Cimetire du Pre Lachaise in

Paris. Today, said Hugo at the ceremony, we have a
people in black because of the death of the man of talent;
a nation in mourning for a man of genius.[74] The funeral
was attended by almost every writer in Paris, including

2.1

Realism

Frdrick Lematre, Gustave Courbet, Dumas pre and an early pioneer of literary realism.[77] While he admired
Dumas ls.[75]
and drew inspiration from the Romantic style of Scottish
depict human exLater, Balzac became the subject of a monumental statue novelist Walter Scott, Balzac sought to[78]
istence
through
the
use
of
particulars.
In the preface
by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Cast in bronze
to
the
rst
edition
of
Scnes
de
la
Vie
prive,
he writes:
for the rst time in 1939, the Monument to Balzac stands
The
author
rmly
believes
that
details
alone
will
hencenear the intersection of Boulevard Raspail and Boulevard
[79]
forth
determine
the
merit
of
works....
Plentiful
deMontparnasse. Rodin featured Balzac in several of his
scriptions
of
dcor,
clothing,
and
possessions
help
breathe
smaller sculptures as well.
life into the characters.[80] For example, Balzacs friend
Hyacinthe de Latouche had knowledge of hanging wallpaper. Balzac transferred this to his descriptions of the
2 Writing style
Pension Vauquer in Le Pre Goriot, making the wallpaper
speak of the identities of those living inside.[81]
The Comdie Humaine remained unnished at the time of
Some critics consider Balzacs writing exemplary of
his deathBalzac had plans to include numerous other
naturalisma more pessimistic and analytical form of
books, most of which he never started.[76] He frequently
realism, which seeks to explain human behavior as inmoved between works in progress, and nished works
trinsically linked with the environment. French novelist
were often revised between editions. This piecemeal style
mile Zola declared Balzac the father of the naturalist
is reective of the authors own life, a possible attempt to
novel.[82] Zola indicated that, whereas Romantics saw the
stabilize it through ction. The vanishing man, writes
world through a colored lens, the naturalist sees through a
Pritchett, who must be pursued from the rue Cassini to ...
clear glassprecisely the sort of eect Balzac attempted
Versailles, Ville d'Avray, Italy, and Vienna can construct
to achieve in his works.[83]
a settled dwelling only in his work.[39]

2.1

Realism

2.1.1 Characters
Balzac sought to present his characters as real people,
neither fully good nor fully evil, but fully human. To
arrive at the truth, he wrote in the preface to Le Lys
dans la valle, writers use whatever literary device seems
capable of giving the greatest intensity of life to their
characters.[84] Balzacs characters, Robb notes, were
as real to him as if he were observing them in the outside
world.[85] This reality was noted by playwright Oscar
Wilde, who said: One of the greatest tragedies of my
life is the death of [Illusions Perdues protagonist] Lucien
de Rubempr.... It haunts me in my moments of pleasure.
I remember it when I laugh.[86]
At the same time, the characters represent a particular
range of social types: the noble soldier, the scoundrel, the
proud workman, the fearless spy, the alluring mistress.[87]
That Balzac was able to balance the strength of the individual against the representation of the type is evidence
of the authors skill. One critic explained that there is a
center and a circumference to Balzacs world.[88]

Monument to Balzac by Auguste Rodin

Balzacs use of repeating characters, moving in and out

of the Comdie's books, strengthens the realist representation. When the characters reappear, notes Rogers,
they do not step out of nowhere; they emerge from the
privacy of their own lives which, for an interval, we have
not been allowed to see.[89] He also used a realist technique which French novelist Marcel Proust later named
retrospective illumination, whereby a characters past
is revealed long after she or he rst appears.

A nearly innite reserve of energy propels the characters

Balzacs extensive use of detail, especially the detail of in Balzacs novels. Struggling against the currents of huobjects, to illustrate the lives of his characters made him man nature and society, they may lose more often than

LEGACY

2.2 Perspective
Balzacs literary mood evolved over time from one of despondency and chagrin to one of solidarity and courage
but not optimism.[98] La Peau de Chagrin, among his earliest novels, is a pessimistic tale of confusion and destruction. But the cynicism declined as his oeuvre progressed, and the characters of Illusions Perdues reveal
sympathy for those who are pushed to one side by society. As part of the 19th-century evolution of the novel
as a democratic literary form, Balzac wrote that les
livres sont faits pour tout le monde, (books are written
for everybody).[99]
Balzac concerned himself overwhelmingly with the
darker essence of human nature and the corrupting inuence of middle and high societies.[100] He worked to observe humanity in its most representative state, frequently
passing incognito among the masses of Parisian society to
they winbut only rarely do they give up. This univer- do research.[101] He used incidents from his life and the
sal trait is a reection of Balzacs own social wrangling, people around him, in works like Eugnie Grandet and
that of his family, and an interest in the Austrian mystic Louis Lambert.[102]
and physician Franz Mesmer, who pioneered the study of
animal magnetism. Balzac spoke often of a nervous and
uid force between individuals, and Raphal Valentins 2.3 Politics
decline in La Peau de Chagrin exemplies the danger of
Balzac was a highly conservative Royalist; in many
withdrawing from the company of other people.[90]
ways, he is the antipode to Victor Hugo's democratic
republicanism.[103] Nevertheless, his keen insight regarding working-class conditions earned him the esteem of
many Socialists and Marxists. Engels said that Balzac was
2.1.2 Place
his favorite writer. Marxs work Das Kapital also makes
constant reference to the works of Balzac and urged EnRepresentations of the city, countryside, and building in- gels to read Balzacs work The Unknown Masterpiece.
teriors are essential to Balzacs realism, often serving to
paint a naturalistic backdrop before which the characters
lives follow a particular course; this gave him a reputa- 3 Legacy
tion as an early naturalist. Intricate details about locations sometimes stretch for fteen or twenty pages.[91] As
he did with the people around him, Balzac studied these Balzac inuenced the writers of his time and beyond.
He has been compared to Charles Dickens and has been
places in depth, traveling to remote locations and surveycalled one of Dickens inuences. Critic W. H. Helm
[92]
ing notes that he had made on previous visits.
calls one the French Dickens and the other the English
The inuence of Paris permeates La Comdie. Nature Balzac.[104] Critic Richard Lehan says that Balzac was
defers to the articial metropolis, in contrast to the de- the bridge between the comic realism of Dickens and the
pictions of weather and wildlife in the countryside. If in naturalism of Zola.[105]
Paris, Rogers says, we are in a man-made region where
even the seasons are forgotten, these provincial towns are Gustave Flaubert was also substantially inuenced by
nearly always pictured in their natural setting.[93] Balzac Balzac. Praising his portrayal of society while attacka man he
said, the streets of Paris possess human qualities and ing his prose style, Flaubert once wrote: What[106]
would
have
been
had
he
known
how
to
write!"
While
we cannot shake o the impressions they make upon our
he
disdained
the
label
of
realist,
Flaubert
clearly
took
[94]
minds. His labyrinthine city provided a literary model
heed
of
Balzacs
close
attention
to
detail
and
unvarnished
used later by English novelist Charles Dickens and Rus[107]
This inuence shows
sian author Fyodor Dostoevsky.[95] The centrality of Paris depictions of bourgeois life.
in
Flauberts
work
L'education
sentimentale,
which owes
in La Comdie Humaine is key to Balzacs legacy as a re[108]
What
Balzac
a
debt
to
Balzacs
Illusions
Perdues.
alist. Realism is nothing if not urban, notes critic Peter
[109]
started,
says
Lehan,
Flaubert
helped
nish.
Brooks; the scene of a young man coming into the city to
nd his fortune is ubiquitous in the realist novel, and ap- Marcel Proust similarly learned from the Realist expears repeatedly in Balzacs works, such as Illusions Per- ample; he adored Balzac and studied his works caredues.[96][97]
fully, although he criticised what he called Balzacs
1901 edition of The Works of Honor de Balzac, including Le
Pre Goriot.

9
Barthes published S/Z, a detailed analysis of Balzacs
story Sarrasine and a key work in structuralist literary criticism.

Bust of Balzac by Auguste Rodin (1892), displayed at the Victoria

and Albert Museum in London

Balzac has also inuenced popular culture. Many of his

works have been made into popular lms and television
serials, including: Travers Vale's Pre Goriot (1915),[120]
Les Chouans (1947), Le Pre Goriot (1968 BBC miniseries), and La Cousine Bette (1974 BBC mini-series,
starring Margaret Tyzack and Helen Mirren; 1998 lm,
starring Jessica Lange). He is included in Franois Truffaut's 1959 lm, The 400 Blows. Truaut believed Balzac
and Proust to be the greatest of French writers.[121] He
was also adapted into a character in Orson Scott Card's
alternate history series The Tales of Alvin Maker; he is
presented as a crude but deeply witty and insightful man.
Chinese author Dai Sijie published Balzac et la Petite
Tailleuse Chinoise (Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress)(2000), in which a suitcase lled with novels helps
to sustain city youths sent to the countryside for reeducation during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It
was made into a lm (adapted and directed by the author)
in 2002. The Japanese rock band Balzac is also named in
his honor.

4 Works
vulgarity.[110][111] Balzacs story Une Heure de ma Vie
(An Hour of my Life, 1822), in which minute details are Tragic verse
followed by deep personal reections, is a clear ancestor of the style which Proust used in la recherche du
Cromwell (1819)
temps perdu.[101] However, Proust wrote later in life that
the contemporary fashion to rank Balzac higher than TolIncomplete at time of death
stoy was madness.[112]
Perhaps the author most aected by Balzac was Amer Le Corsaire (opera)
ican expatriate novelist Henry James. In 1878 James
Stnie
wrote with sadness about the lack of contemporary attention paid to Balzac, and lavished praise on him in
Falthurne
four essays (in 1875, 1877, 1902, and 1913). In 1878
James wrote: Large as Balzac is, he is all of one
Corsino
piece and he hangs perfectly together.[113] He wrote
with admiration of Balzacs attempt to portray in writ- Published pseudonymously
ing a beast with a hundred claws.[114] In his own novels James explored more of the psychological motives of As Lord R'Hoone, in collaboration
the characters and less of the historical sweep exhibited
L'Hritire de Birague (1822)
by Balzaca conscious style preference. "[T]he artist of
the Comdie Humaine, he wrote, is half smothered by
Jean-Louis (1822)
the historian.[115] Still, both authors used the form of the
realist novel to probe the machinations of society and the
As Horace de Saint-Aubin
myriad motives of human behavior.[109][116]
Balzacs vision of a society in which class, money and
personal ambition are the major players has been endorsed by critics of both left-wing and right-wing political
tendencies.[117] Marxist Friedrich Engels wrote: I have
learned more [from Balzac] than from all the professional
historians, economists and statisticians put together.[118]
Balzac has received high praise from critics as diverse as
Walter Benjamin and Camille Paglia.[119] In 1970 Roland

Clotilde de Lusignan (1822)

Le Centenaire (1822)
Le Vicaire des Ardennes (1822)
La Dernire Fe (1823)
Annette et le Criminal (Argow le Pirate) (1824)

10
Wann-Chlore (1826)
Published anonymously
Du Droit d'anesse (1824)

5 NOTES

5 Notes
[1] Balzac. Random House Websters Unabridged Dictionary.

Histoire impartiale des Jsuites (1824)

[2] Maurois, 7

Code des gens honntes (1826)

[3] Robb, 4, 167-8

Selected titles from La Comdie humaine

Les Chouans (1829)
Sarrasine (1830)
La Peau de chagrin (1831)
Le Chef-d'uvre inconnu (1831)
Le Colonel Chabert (1832)

[4] Robb, 5
[5] Robb, 56
[6] Pritchett, 23
[7] Robb, 8
[8] Robb, 18
[9] Pritchett, 25

Le Cur de Tours (1832)

[10] Robb, 9

La Fille aux yeux d'or (1833)

[11] Pritchett, 26

Eugnie Grandet (1833)

[12] Robb, 14

Le Contrat de mariage (1835)

[13] Pritchett, 29

Le Pre Goriot (1835)

[14] Champeury (1878). Balzac au Collge. Patay. Quoted

in Robb, 15

Le Lys dans la valle (1835)

La Rabouilleuse (1842)

[15] Balzac (1832). Louis Lambert. Quoted in Pritchett, 29

Ursule Mirout (1842)

[16] Robb, 22

La Femme de trente ans (1829-1842)

[17] Saintsbury, Honor de Balzac, xi

Illusions perdues (I, 1837; II, 1839; III, 1843)

[18] Robb, 24

La Cousine Bette (1846)

[19] Robb, 30

Le Cousin Pons (1847)

[20] Robb, 48

Splendeurs et misres des courtisanes (1847)

[21] Balzac (1840). Le Notaire. Quoted in Robb, 44

Plays

[22] Quoted in Pritchett, 42

L'cole des mnages (1839)

[23] Saintsbury, Honor de Balzac, xiii

Vautrin (1839)

[24] Robb, 59

Les Ressources de Quinola (1842)

[25] Rogers, 19

Pamla Giraud (1842)

[26] Robb, 60

La Martre (1848)

[27] Saintsbury, EB, 298

Mercadet ou le faiseur (1848)

[28] Robb, 103

Tales

[29] Saintsbury, Honor de Balzac, xv

Contes drolatiques (183237)

[30] Saintsbury, Honor de Balzac, xiv

La Grande Bretche

[31] Rogers, 23

An Episode of terror

[32] Robb, 63
[33] The Human Comedy, Introduction. Gutenberg.org. Re-

Summaries, reviews and other information about Balzac

trieved: 27 October 2014.
and his works are being collated at the collaborative blog
[34] Rogers, 15
La Comedie Humaine.[122]

11

[35] Saintsbury, Honor de Balzac, xvii

[70] Robb, 404

[36] Saintsbury, Honor de Balzac, xviii

[71] Pritchett, 263

[37] Robb, 130

[72] Saintsbury, Honor de Balzac, xxxv

[38] Robb, 138

[73] Saintsbury, EB, 301

[39] Pritchett, 161

[74] The full text is available at Victor Hugo Central.

[40] Saintsbury, Honor de Balzac, xix

[75] Robb, 412

[41] Robb, 169

[76] Robb, 405

[42] Robb, 162

[77] Brooks, 16

[43] Quoted in Robb, 190

[78] Brooks, 21

[44] Robb, 193

[79] Quoted in Rogers, 144

[45] Robb, 178

[80] Brooks, 26

[46] Pritchett, 155

[81] Robb, 152

[47] Rogers, 120

[82] Robb, 421

[48] Robb, 258

[83] Brooks, 125

[49] Robb, 246

[84] Quoted in Rogers, 161

[50] Robb, 272

[85] Robb, 254

[51] Rogers, 18

[86] Robb, 156

[52] Robb, 326

[87] Helm, 23

[53] Rogers, 168

[88] Lehan, 45

[54] Robb, 365

[89] Rogers, 182

[55] Saintsbury, Honor de Balzac, xxvi

[90] Rogers, 7374

[56] Saintsbury, Honor de Balzac, xxvii

[91] Helm, 5

[57] Robb, 106

[92] Bertault, 36

[58] Saintsbury, EB, 299

[93] Rogers, 62

[59] Saintsbury, Honor de Balzac, xxviii

[94] Balzac. Histoire des Treize: Ferragus, chef des dvorants,

XIII, 13; quoted in Rogers, 45

[60] La Revue de Paris, Volume 67, Part 3. Bureau de la Revue

de Paris. 1960. p. 122.
[61] Chancerel, Pierrot (OctoberNovember 1955), La vritable Eugnie Grandet : Marie du Fresnay [The real Eugnie Grandet: Marie du Fresnay], Revue des sciences humaines (in French)
[62] Robb, 223224
[63] Robb, 227
[64] Robb, 230
[65] Robb, 340

[95] Brooks, 22
[96] Brooks, 131
[97] Lehan, 204
[98] Helm, 130
[99] Quoted in Prendergast, 26
[100] Rogers, 128
[101] Robb, 70

[66] Pritchett, 261

[102] Robb and Pritchett cite specic examples, included in Biography, above.

[67] Pritchett, 261262

[103] Mtholyoke.edu

[68] Saintsbury, Honor de Balzac, xxiv

[104] Helm, 124

[69] Quoted in Robb, 404

[105] Lehan, 38

12

[106] Quoted in Robb, 422

[107] Brooks, 54
[108] Brooks, 27
[109] Lehan, 48
[110] Brooks, 202
[111] Proust, 56
[112] Proust, 326
[113] James (1878), 89
[114] James (1914), 127
[115] James (1914), 115
[116] Stowe, 2831
[117] Rogers, vii
[118] Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick Engels (1947). Literature and Art: Selections from Their Writings. New York.
Quoted in Rogers, ix
[119] Robb, 423
[120] IMDB. Retrieved 2014-02-10.
[121] Truaut, Franois et al. Correspondence, 1945-1984.
New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000. ISBN 0-81541024-7, p. 61
[122] La Comedie Humaine

See also
Listing of the works of Alexandre Falguire
William Hobart Royce
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

References
Bertault, Philippe (1963). Balzac and The Human
Comedy. English version by Richard Monges. New
York: NYU Press. OCLC 344556
Brooks, Peter (2005). Realist Vision. New Haven:
Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10680-7
Helm, W. H. (1905). Aspects of Balzac. London:
Eveleigh Nash. OCLC 2321317
James, Henry (1878). French Poets and Novelists.
New York: Grosset & Dunlap. OCLC 339000
James, Henry (1914). Notes on Novelists. New
York: Charles Scribners Sons. OCLC 679102

EXTERNAL LINKS

Lehan, Richard (2005). Realism and Naturalism.

Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN
0-299-20870-2
Leone, Giuseppe (1999). Honor de Balzac, una
creativit sempre recidiva, mai stanca - Con lui il
romanzo s fatto uomo, su Ricorditi di me..., in
Lecco 2000, Lecco, febbraio 1999
Maurois, Andr (1965). Promthe ou la vie de
Balzac. Paris: Hachette.
(French) Lotte, Fernand (1952). Dictionnaire biographique des personnages ctifs de la comdie humaine. Paris: Corti. ISBN 0-320-05184-6
Prendergast, Christopher (1978). Balzac: Fiction
and Melodrama. London: Edward Arnold Ltd.
ISBN 0-7131-5969-3
Pritchett, V. S. (1973). Balzac. New York: Alfred
A. Knopf Inc. ISBN 0-394-48357-X
Proust, Marcel (1994). Against Sainte-Beuve and
Other Essays. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
ISBN 0-14-018525-9
Robb, Graham (1994). Balzac: A Biography. New
York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-39303679-0
Rogers, Samuel (1953). Balzac & The Novel. New
York: Octagon Books. LCCN 75-76005
Saintsbury, George (1901). "Honor de Balzac".
The Works of Honor de Balzac (Vol. I, pp. vii
xivi). Philadelphia: Avil Publishing Company.
OCLC 6314807
Saintsbury, George Edward Bateman (1911).
Balzac, Honore de. The Encyclopdia Britannica
(11th ed., Vol. 3). New York: Encyclopdia
Britannica, Inc. Wikisource
Stowe, William W (1983). Systematic Realism.
In Honor de Balzac. Edited by Harold Bloom.
Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 07910-7042-5
Zweig, Stefan (1946). Balzac New York, Viking
Press. OCLC 342322

8 External links
Works by Honor de Balzac at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Honor de Balzac at Internet
Archive
Works by Honor de Balzac at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

13
Honor de Balzacs works: text, concordances and
frequency lists

Honor de Balzac by Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

at Project Gutenberg
Balzac and anthropology
Balzac on mimetism, language, desire for the absolute
Readers Guide: Themes in the Novels of Balzac at
the Wayback Machine (archived October 27, 2009)
Free book downloads for iPhone, iPad, Android,
and Kindle at ebooktakeaway.com
Victor Hugos eulogy for Honor de Balzac
Special Issue of Lingua Romana on Balzac

14

9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

9.1

Text

Honor de Balzac Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor%C3%A9_de_Balzac?oldid=662112837 Contributors: Kpjas, MichaelTinkler, Deb, Imran, Heron, Camembert, DW, Hephaestos, Olivier, Rickyrab, Leandrod, Jahsonic, Paul A, Mkweise, Ahoerstemeier, Den
fjttrade ankan~enwiki, Kwekubo, Andres, Deisenbe, John K, David Thrale, Greenrd, Wik, Grendelkhan, Itai, Ccady, Fvw, Raul654,
Dpbsmith, Wetman, Flockmeal, Shafei, Jeq, Dimadick, Robbot, Naddy, Profoss, Zaui, DocWatson42, AtStart, Vfp15, Michael Devore,
Solipsist, JillandJack, George Kaplan, Kharoon~enwiki, Antandrus, MistToys, Piotrus, Lesgles, Jossi, Emax, Ruzulo, Neutrality, Urhixidur, Jacooks, Mike Rosoft, D6, Simonides, DanielCD, Discospinster, Oliver Lineham, Vsmith, Byrial, Wadewitz, Pavel Vozenilek, Paul
August, Bender235, Jnestorius, Fenevad, Pjrich, Kwamikagami, Mwanner, Cacophony, Markussep, Bill Thayer, Vervin, 23skidoo, Redlentil, ZayZayEM, Elipongo, Arcadian, Pokrajac, Nk, Vanished user azby388723i8jfjh32, Nsaa, Jez, Alansohn, SlaveToTheWage, Philip
Cross, Riana, Zippanova, Evangeline, Spangineer, Snowolf, Suruena, Eddie Dealtry, Ilse@, Rapscallion, Gene Nygaard, Siafu, MrDarcy,
TheAlphaWolf, Wayward, Mandarax, Magister Mathematicae, Island, Porcher, Phillipedison1891, Crzrussian, Rjwilmsi, Eoghanacht,
Koavf, Zbxgscqf, Wooddoo-eng, SMC, Merrilee, Brighterorange, Scartol, MarnetteD, FlaBot, Daderot, RobertG, Intersoa, Crazycomputers, Maire, Tyrth, Imnotminkus, Chobot, Mordant21, Visor, DVdm, Korg, EamonnPKeane, Kummi, YurikBot, Angus Lepper,
Brandmeister (old), RussBot, FrenchIsAwesome, Okedem, Philopedia, Kimchi.sg, Stephen Burnett, Aeusoes1, Grafen, SigPig, Dureo,
BirgitteSB, Misza13, Jimbo35353, Phaedrus86, Wknight94, HeleneSylvie, Lt-wiki-bot, E Wing, NYArtsnWords, BorgQueen, Colmbuckley, Narziss39, Andyluciano~enwiki, Rearden9, Curpsbot-unicodify, Evillights, SailorAlphaCentauri, UltimatePyro, Attilios, SmackBot, Saravask, Lestrade, Herostratus, KocjoBot~enwiki, Eskimbot, Jab843, Paxse, Lexo, David Fuchs, IstvanWolf, Oscarthecat, Skizzik,
JerseyBob, Krismastree, Thumperward, MalafayaBot, JoeBlogsDord, Sadads, Ctbolt, DHN-bot~enwiki, Colonies Chris, Constanz, Gracenotes, Scwlong, Coyau, Zone46, JMLocier, JesseRafe, The tooth, Jmlk17, GhostDancer, Zero Gravity, Jonfernquest, RossF18, Leon...,
Adamv88, Esrever, Ser Amantio di Nicolao, Cberejik, John, General Ization, TheWalrus67, Cmh, Scetoaux, IronGargoyle, The Man in
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Matthew Fennell, Ribonucleic, PhilKnight, ResurgamII, Kikadue~enwiki, Bongwarrior, VoABot II, JNW, Steven Walling, Ajcounter,
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DrKiernan, Uncle Dick, Mike.lifeguard, Johnbod, LordAnubisBOT, Balthazarduju, Timfalla, M-le-mot-dit, 83d40m, Student7, KylieTastic, ANZLitLovers, Scewing, Neinfraulein, Idioma-bot, Dnfenner, VolkovBot, Samsdad, Mcewan, TXiKiBoT, EvanCarroll, Downeyr,
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