Théophile Gautier

byname Le
Bon Théo
born
Aug. 31, 1811, Tarbes, France
died Oct. 23, 1872, Neuilly-sur-Seine
poet,
novelist, critic, and journalist whose
influence was strongly felt in the
period of changing sensibilities in
French literature—from the early
Romantic period to the aestheticism and
naturalism of the end of the 19th
century.
Gautier lived most of his life in Paris.
At the Collège de Charlemagne he met
Gérard de Nerval and began a lasting
friendship. He studied painting but soon
decided that his true vocation was
poetry. Sympathetic to the Romantic
movement, he took part in the cultural
battle that ensued when Victor Hugo’s
play Hernani was first performed in
Paris in 1830. He humorously recalled
this period in Histoire du romantisme
(1874; “History of Romanticism”) and in
Portraits contemporains (1874;
“Contemporary Portraits”), in which he
gave an excellent description of his
friend Honoré de Balzac. He satirized
his own extravagances, as well as those
of other Romanticists, in Les Jeunes-France
(1833; “Young France”). Les Grotesques
(1834–36) is about more obscure earlier
writers whose individualism anticipated
that of the Romantics.
Gautier’s first poems appeared in 1830.
Albertus, a long narrative about a young
painter who falls into the hands of a
sorcerer, was published in 1832. At this
time he turned from the doctrines of
Romanticism and became an advocate of
art for art’s sake. The preface to
Albertus and the novel Mademoiselle de
Maupin (1835) express his views, which
caused a considerable stir in literary
circles by their disregard of
conventional morality and insistence on
the sovereignty of the beautiful. His
pessimism and fear of death were
expressed in the narrative poem La
Comédie de la mort (1838; “The Comedy of
Death”).
In 1840
Gautier visited Spain; the colour of the
land and people inspired some of his
best poetry, in España (1845), and
prose, in Voyage en Espagne (1845).
After this trip he found traveling to be
a welcome escape from the constant
pressures of his journalistic work,
which he pursued to support himself, two
mistresses, and his three children, as
well as his two sisters. From 1836 to
1855 he was a weekly contributor to La
Presse and Le Moniteur Universel; in
1851, editor of Revue de Paris; in 1856,
editor of L’Artiste. Besides this work
he contributed to many other periodicals
and papers. Gautier often bemoaned the
conditions of his existence; he felt
that journalism was draining off the
creative energy that should have been
reserved for poetry.
Traveling, especially in Greece,
strengthened his theory of art, his
admiration of classical forms. He felt
that art should be impersonal, free from
the obligation of teaching moral
lessons. The aim of the artist is to
concentrate on achieving perfection of
form. He developed a technique in poetry
that he called transposition d’art
(“transposing art”), recording his exact
impressions when experiencing a painting
or other work of art. These poems,
published in Émaux et camées (1852;
“Enamels and Cameos”), are among his
finest, and the book was a point of
departure for the writers Théodore de
Banville and Leconte de Lisle. Charles
Baudelaire paid tribute to Gautier in
the dedication of his verse collection
Les Fleurs du mal.
Gautier’s poetic and fantastic
imagination is seen to advantage in his
short fiction—e.g., the evocations of
ancient Pompeii in Arria Marcella (1852)
and the vampire story La Mort amoureuse
(1857; “The Dead Lover”). His literary
output was prodigious, but his art and
dramatic criticism alone—partly
reprinted in Les Beaux-Arts en Europe
(1855) and in Histoire de l’art
dramatique en France depuis vingt-cinq
ans, 6 vol. (1858–59; “History of Drama
in France for Twenty-Five Years”)—would
ensure his reputation. As a ballet
critic he remains unrivaled. He also
wrote plays and the popular ballet
Giselle, written in collaboration with
Vernoy de Saint-Georges.
Gautier
was held in esteem by many of his
contemporaries who were also prominent
literary figures: Gustave Flaubert,
Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, the
Goncourt brothers, Banville, and
Baudelaire. In his last years he became
the friend of the Princess Mathilde, who
gave him a sinecure post as a librarian
to ease his financial strain.