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Oued By Fromentin

Fromentin, Eugène (1820-1876), French writer and painter, best known for his unique idealist novel, written on the fringes of romanticism. Born in La Rochelle, he spent his childhood on the family estate in Saintonge. While studying at college, he fell in love with a young Creole woman, a little older than him, who married and died in 1844. Fromentin then made stays in Algeria, from where he brought back paintings which reveal the talent of an orientalist painter, and also traveled to Belgium and Holland. He published volumes of memories admired by George Sand, Michelet and Sainte-Beuve (A Summer in the Sahara, 1857; A Year in the Sahel, 1859) and art critics (Les Maîtres d'autreviens, 1876). But Fromentin's masterpiece is Dominique (1862), which evokes the adult's difficult renunciation of the dreams of adolescence. This unique novel transposes his own memories and childhood loves: Dominique, an orphan, is raised in the countryside. At college, he devoted himself to poetry and became friends with Olivier, whose cousin, Madeleine, he loved. After the young girl's marriage, he remained her friend and attempted, without success, a career as a political journalist and writer. He returns to his land, gets married, and experiences the serenity in the anonymity of the life of a country gentleman. We remember from this novel its autobiographical character, which gives accents of remarkable sincerity to the psychological analyses. We saw in him the masterpiece of the idealist novel, far removed from the romantic and realistic movements. After La Nouvelle Héloïse and Werther, he writes in a new way the renunciation of passion. But the feeling of nature, the beauty of the descriptions of autumn have also made this work famous.