Gustave Le Vavasseur

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search

Gustave Le Vavasseur (9 November 1819 – 9 September 1896) was a French poet and writer.

Biography

Gustave Le Vavasseur was born in Argentan, the son of Michel Le Vavasseur, a registration inspector, and Marie-Célestine Renault de la Renaudière, Le Vavasseur began his studies in 1828 at the college of his native town, where he became friends with Philippe de Chennevières. His studies were interrupted after two years by the July Revolution, during which he showed ultra-royalist ideas inherited from his mother.[1] In 1833, he finished his studies at the College of Juilly. He went to Paris to study law and was admitted as a lawyer on October 12, 1840, but he hardly practiced. Having made the acquaintance, in Paris, at the Railly boarding school, of the poets Ernest Prarond, Auguste Dozon, known as "d'Argonne" and Charles Baudelaire, he started early in literature and even came close to publishing a volume of verses bearing these four signatures together before Baudelaire recused himself at the last moment.[2]

He remained, as for him, faithful to the fund and the form of the classical poetry, marked by his native Normandy, publishing from 1843, Vers, a collection of poems in collaboration with his friends Prarond and Dozon. From that time on, he did not cease to give each year pieces in verse and prose where he showed the most flexible and varied talent. His work, a little scattered, of which he collected himself the best part in four volumes, is considerable. With a reputation perhaps inferior to his talent, Le Vavasseur nevertheless enjoyed the esteem of quite numerous admirers, and his fame extended well beyond the limits of his province. On many occasions, the Polybiblion has praised him. Excellent in the tableau de genre, in the pièce de circonstance, in the stanza with difficult rhythm, he made school, and a whole pleiad of young Norman authors, Paul Harel, Charles Pitou, Achille Paysant, Joseph Germain-Lacour, Florentin Loriot, Wilfrid Challemel, Ernest Millet and many others, asked him for advices and imitated his style and his manner.

After spending some time in the capital, he returned to his country and settled in the commune of Longé, of which he became mayor in 1849 and represented the canton of Briouze at the arrondissement council in 1852 and General Councillor in 1870.

At the same time as he cultivated his muse, Le Vavasseur was engaged in scholarly work. He was for some time president of the Société des antiquaires de Normandie, president of the Société historique et archéologique de l'Orne, of which he remained secretary general.

He wrote under the pseudonyms of "Civilis" and "Gustave Delorne".

Gustave Le Vavasseur died in La Lande-de-Lougé.

Notes

  1. ↑ Viborel, Lucien (2005). Les Fleurs du bien: anthologie de poésie catholique des XIXe et XXe siècles. Paris: F. Lanore, p. 43.
  2. ↑ Beaurepaire, Eugène de (1897). "Notices biographiques: Sur M. Gustave Le Vavasseur," Annuaire des cinq départements de la Normandie, Caen, Association normande, Vol. LXIV, p. 433.

References

  • Contades, Gérard de (1898). Gustave Le Vavasseur: débuts littéraires. Discours lu à la séance publique de la Société historique et archéologique de l’Orne, le 19 octobre 1898. Alençon: E. Renaut-de Broise.
  • Contades, Gérard de (1898). Gustave Le Vavasseur: bibliographie de ses œuvres (1840-1896). Alençon: E. Renaut-de Broise.

External links

Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Gustave_Le_Vavasseur&oldid=726721463"