Henri Murger
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"At this time Murger was living in an attic in the Latin Quarter, and on the afternoon when the playwright presented himself there he found the novelist in bed. Presuming that he was ill Barrière was about to beat a retreat, but Murger courteously begged of him to enter and avail himself of the only chair which the room contained. When had broached the subject of his visit Murger readily fell in with his suggestion, and the pair soon became so friendly that the dramatist suggested an adjournment to a neighboring cafe. "I am sorry to say that I can't come,” replied Murger, with some little embarrassment. "Why not? Surely you are not ill,” urged Barrière. "No,” responded the novelist, “but the fact is,” I haven't a pair of trousers to put on.” Then, as Barrière looked at him in amazement, he proceeded to relate that an impecunious Bohemian friend, having to solicit a favor of some functionary, had borrowed his only pair of trousers that morning, and that he, Murger, was compelled to remain in bed until his friend turned up again. After a hearty laugh Barrière offered to go and buy his new acquaintance another pair of pantaloons, but Murger declined the proposal, and they parted,” soon to meet again, however, to set to work upon the contemplated play." --"Murger and His Work" (1888) by Vizetelly |
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Henri Murger (1822 – 1861) was a French writer best known for his novel Scènes de la vie de bohème (1851), which is based on his own experiences as a desperately poor writer living in a Parisian garret (the top floor of buildings, where artists often lived) and as a member of a loose club of friends who called themselves "the water drinkers" (because they were too poor to afford wine). In his writing he combines instinct with pathos, humour, and sadness. The book is the basis for the archetype of the starving artist.
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Biography
Murger was born and died in Paris. He was the son of a Savoyard immigrant who worked as a tailor and janitor for an apartment building in the Rue Saint Georges. He had a scanty and fragmented education. After leaving school at 15 he worked in a variety of menial jobs before securing one in a lawyer's office. While there he also wrote poetry which came to the attention of the French writer Étienne de Jouy. De Jouy's connections enabled him to secure the position of secretary to Count Tolstoi, a Russian nobleman living in Paris. Murger's literary career began about 1841. His first essays were mainly literary and poetic, but under the pressure of earning a living he wrote whatever he could find a market for, turning out prose as he put it, "at the rate of eighty francs an acre". At one point he edited a fashion newspaper, Le Moniteur de la Mode, and a paper for the millinery trade, Le Castor. His position gradually improved when the French writer Champfleury, with whom he lived for a time, urged Murger to devote himself to fiction. His first big success was Scènes de la vie de bohème. In 1851 Murger published a sequel, Scènes de la vie de jeunesse. Several more works followed, but none of them brought him the same popular acclaim.
He lived much of the next ten years in a country house outside Paris, dogged by financial problems and recurrent ill health. In 1859 he received the Légion d'honneur but within two years he was almost penniless and dying in a Paris hospital. Napoleon III's minister Count Walewski sent 500 francs to help pay his medical expenses, but it was too late. Henri Murger died on 28 January 1861 at the age of 38. The French government paid for his funeral, which from contemporary accounts in Le Figaro was a great public occasion attended by 250 luminaries from journalism, literature, theatre, and the arts. Le Figaro also started a fund to raise money for his monument. Hundreds of people contributed and within two months it had raised over 6500 francs.
Spelling of the name
Early in his career, in an effort to make himself appear more "elegant and noticeable", Murger signed his name as "Henry Mürger", the English-looking "y" and German-looking umlaut both being exotic in French. - though the spelling of Henry rather than Henri was also archaic French, having been standard orthography (along with such spellings as loy and roy) prior to c. 1775 and not totally supplanted by "i" until after 1790. After experimenting with other variations he eventually kept the former but dropped the latter, so that all of his best-known works were published under the name "Henry Murger".
Works
- Scènes de la vie de bohème (1847–49).
- Scènes de la vie de jeunesse (1851).
- Le Pays latin (1851).
- Propos de ville et propos de théâtre (1853).
- Scènes de campagne (1854).
- Le Roman de toutes les femmes (1854).
- Ballades et Fantaisies (1854).
- Les Buveurs d'eau (1854).
- Le Dessous du panier (1855).
- Le Dernier rendez-vous (1856).
- Les Nuits d’hiver (1856).
- Les Vacances de Camille (1857).
- Le Sabot rouge (1860).
- Madame Olympe (1860).
In English translation
- The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter (1888).
- Winter Nights (1923).
Individual poems
