George Sand

File:Sand-Nadar.png

George Sand. Photo by Nadar, 1864.

Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin, later Baroness (French:baronne) Dudevant (1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), best known by her pseudonym George Sand (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ sɑ̃d]), was a French novelist. She is considered by some a feminist although she refused to join this movement. She is regarded as the first French female novelist to gain a major reputation.

Early life

Casimir Dudevant in the 1860s

Sand's father, Maurice Dupin, was the grandson of the Marshal General of France, Maurice, Comte de Saxe, as well as a distant relative of Louis XVI. Her mother, Sophie-Victoire Delaborde was a commoner. Sand was born in Paris but raised for much of her childhood by her grandmother, Marie Aurore de Saxe, Madame Dupin de Franceuil, at her grandmother's estate, Nohant, in the French region of Berry (See House of George Sand). She later used the setting in many of her novels. In 1822, at age 19, she married Baron Casimir Dudevant (1795–1871), illegitimate son of Jean-François. She and Dudevant had two children: Maurice (1823–1889) and Solange (1828–1899). In early 1831 she left her prosaic husband and entered upon a four- or five-year period of "romantic rebellion." In 1835 she was legally separated from Dudevant and, taking the children with her, converted to a Jewish faith.

Contemporary views

Sand, by Auguste Charpentier, 1835.

Sand's reputation came into question when she began sporting men's clothing in public — which she justified by the clothes being far sturdier and less expensive than the typical dress of a noblewoman at the time. In addition to being comfortable, Sand's male dress enabled her to circulate more freely in Paris than most of her female contemporaries could, and gave her increased access to venues from which women were often barred — even women of her social standing.

Also scandalous was Sand's smoking tobacco in public; neither peerage nor gentry had yet sanctioned the free indulgence of women in such a habit, especially in public (though Franz Liszt's paramour Marie D'Agoult affected this as well, smoking large cigars). These and other behaviors were exceptional for a woman of the early and mid-19th century, when social codes—especially in the upper classes—were of the utmost importance.

As a consequence of many unorthodox aspects of her lifestyle, Sand was obliged to relinquish some of the privileges appertaining to a baroness — though, interestingly, the mores of the period did permit upper-class wives to live physically separated from their husbands, without losing face, provided the estranged couple exhibited no blatant irregularity to the outside world.

Poet Charles Baudelaire was a contemporary critic of George Sand: "She is stupid, heavy and garrulous. Her ideas on morals have the same depth of judgment and delicacy of feeling as those of janitresses and kept women.... The fact that there are men who could become enamoured of this slut is indeed a proof of the abasement of the men of this generation."

Relationships

Sand sewing. Portrait by Delacroix, 1838. Originally part of painting showing both Sand and Chopin.

Stylized rendition of Delacroix's 1838 joint portrait of Sand and Chopin

Sand conducted affairs of varying duration with Jules Sandeau (1831), Prosper Mérimée, Alfred de Musset (summer 1833 – March 1835), Louis-Chrystosome Michel, Pierre-François Bocage, Félicien Mallefille and Frédéric Chopin (1837–47).

Later in life, she corresponded with Gustave Flaubert. Despite their obvious differences in temperament and aesthetic preference, they eventually became close friends.

She was engaged in an intimate friendship with actress Marie Dorval, which led to widespread but unconfirmed rumors of a lesbian affair.

In Majorca one can still visit the (then abandoned) Carthusian monastery of Valldemossa, where she spent the winter of 1838–39 with Chopin and her children. This trip to Majorca was described by her in Un Hiver à Majorque (A Winter in Majorca), published in 1855. Chopin was already ill with incipient tuberculosis at the beginning of their relationship, and spending a winter in Majorca - where Sand and Chopin did not realize that winter was a time of rain and cold, and where they could not get proper lodgings - exacerbated his symptoms.

Chopin left her two years before his death, because of a family disturbance wherein he supported her daughter Solange's marriage choice, which had caused Sand to disown the daughter.

Writing career

Sand in 1875

A liaison with the writer Jules Sandeau heralded her literary debut. They published a few stories in collaboration, signing them "Jules Sand." She consequently adopted, for her first independent novel, Indiana (1832) , the pen name that made her famous – George Sand.

Her first published novel, Rose et Blanche (1831), was written in collaboration with Jules Sandeau.

Drawing from her childhood experiences of the countryside, she wrote the rural novels La Mare au Diable (1846), François le Champi (1847–1848), La Petite Fadette (1849), and Les Beaux Messieurs Bois-Doré (1857). A Winter in Majorca described the period that she and Chopin spent on that island in 1838-9.

Her other novels include Indiana (1832), Lélia (1833), Mauprat (1837), Le Compagnon du Tour de France (1840), Consuelo (1842–1843), and Le Meunier d'Angibault (1845).

Further theatre pieces and autobiographical pieces include Histoire de ma vie (1855), Elle et Lui (1859) (about her affair with Musset), Journal Intime (posthumously published in 1926), and Correspondence. Sand often performed her theatrical works in her small private theatre at the Nohant estate.

In addition, Sand authored literary criticism and political texts. Her most widely used quote is "There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved."

She was known well in far reaches of the world, and her social practices, her writings and her beliefs prompted much commentary, often by other luminaries in the world of arts and letters. A few excerpts demonstrate much of what was often said about George Sand:

"She was a thinking bosom and one who overpowered her young lovers, all Sybil — a Romantic."

V.S. Pritchett (writer)

"What a brave man she was, and what a good woman."

Ivan Turgenev (novelist)

"The most womanly woman."

Alfred de Musset (poet)

Death

George Sand died at Nohant, near Châteauroux, in France's Indre département on 8 June, 1876, at the age of 71 and was buried in the grounds of her home there. In 2004, controversial plans were suggested to move her remains to the Panthéon in Paris.

Works

• Voyage En Auvergne (autobiographical sketch, 1827)
• Compagnon Du Tour De France (1840)
• La Petite Fadette (1848)
• Château Des Désertes (1850)
• Histoire De Ma Vie (autobiography up to the revolution of 1848; 1855)

Novels

• Rose Et Blanche (1831, with Jules Sandeau)
• Indiana (1832)
• Valentine (1832)
• Lélia (1833)
• Andréa (1833)
• Mattéa (1833)
• Jacques (1833)
• Kourroglou / Épopée Persane (1833)
• Leone Leoni (1833)
• Simon (1835)
• Mauprat (1837)
• les Maîtres Mosaïtes (1837)
• l'Oreo (1838)
• l'Uscoque (1838)
• Spiridion (1839)
• Un Hiver À Majorque (1839)
• Pauline (1839)
• Horace (1840)
• Consuelo (1842)
• La Comtesse de Rudolstadt (1843, a sequel to Consuelo)
• Jeanne (1844)
• Teverino (1845)
• Pêche de M Antoine (1845)
• Le Meunier D'Angibault (1845)
• La Petite Fadette (1846)
• La Mare Au Diable (1846)
• Lucrezia Floriani (1846)
• François Le Champi (1847)
• Les Maîtres Sonneurs (1853)
• La Daniella (1857)
• Elle Et Lui (1859)
• Jean De La Roche (1859)
• L'Homme De Neige (1859)
• La ville Noire (1860)
• Marquis De Villemer (1860)
• Mademoiselle La Quintinie (1863)
• Laura, Voyage Dans Le Cristal (1864)
• Le Dernier Amour (1866, dedicated to Flaubert)

Plays

• Gabriel (1839)
• François Le Champi (1849)
• Claudie (1851)
• Le Marriage De Victorine (1851)
• Le Pressoir (1853, Play)
• French Adaptation of As You Like It (1856)
• Le Marquis De Villemer (1864)
• L'Autre (1870, with Sarah Bernhardt)

In literature

Frequent literary references to George Sand can be found in Possession (1990) by A. S. Byatt. The American poet Walt Whitman cited Sand's novel Consuelo as a personal favorite and the sequel to this novel La Comtesse De Rudolstady contains at least a couple of passages that appear to have had a very direct influence on him. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), the English poet, produced two poems "To George Sand: A Desire" and "To George Sand: A Recognition". The character, Stepan Verkhovensky, in Dostoevsky's novel The Possessed took to translating the works of George Sand in his periodical, before the periodical was subsequently seized by the ever-cautious Russian government of the 1840s. George Sand is referenced a number of times in the play Voyage, the first part of Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia trilogy. And, in the first episode of the "Overture" to Swann's Way - the first novel in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time sequence - a young, distraught Marcel is calmed by his mother as she reads from François le Champi, a novel which it is explained was part of a birthday package from his grandmother which also included La Mare au Diable, La Petite Fadette, and Les Maîtres Sonneurs. As with many episodes involving art in À la recherche du temps perdu, this reminiscence includes commentary on the work.

In music, film, TV

• A Song to Remember (1945), directed by Charles Vidor, starring Cornel Wilde as Chopin and Merle Oberon as George Sand.
• Notorious Woman (1974), a 7-part BBC miniseries starring Rosemary Harris as George Sand and George Chakiris as Chopin.
• In 1976, the band Ambrosia recorded the song "Danse With Me, George (Chopin's Plea)", based on Sand and Chopin's romance. It appeared on Ambrosia's Album "Somewhere I've Never Travelled."
• Impromptu (1991), starring Judy Davis as George Sand and Hugh Grant as Chopin.
• Les Enfants du siècle (1999), starring Juliette Binoche as George Sand and Benoît Magimel as Alfred de Musset
• Chopin (2002), directed by Jerzy Antczak starring Danuta Stenka as George Sand and Piotr Adamczyk as Chopin.
• Gossip Girl (2008), Blair Waldorf plans to astonish the dean of Yale University by answering 'George Sand' to his question of whom she would have dinner with, dead or alive. In another episode, Blair Waldorf says "Why rip off a page of your life when you can throw the whole book into the fire? George Sand, she understands me."
• In 2007, Céline Dion recorded a song based on a love letter sent from George Sand to Alfred de Musset for her album D'Elles.
• The band Meg & Dia have a song based on Sand's novel Indiana

See also

• Feminist literature
• Gustave Flaubert, with whom Sand conducted an intimate correspondence.
• Pauline Viardot
• House of George Sand
• Musée de la Vie Romantique
• Saint-Benoît-du-Sault

References

• Jean-Albert Bédé, "Sand, George," Encyclopedia Americana, 1986 ed., vol. 24, pp. 218–19.
• Correspondence (letters) by George Sand and her contemporaries (see "Writings by George Sand" link below — some of these letters are available in English translation); Autobiographical writings as mentioned above (several of these also available from Gutenberg website).
• Tad Szulc, Chopin in Paris: the Life and Times of the Romantic Composer, New York, Scribner, 1998, ISBN 0-684-82458-2.
• Doumic, René - George Sand, some aspects of her life and writings at Project Gutenberg
• In French:
• Caro, Elme - George Sand at Project Gutenberg
• Roy, Albert le - George Sand et ses amis at Project Gutenberg
  • Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de la Langue Française 3ième édition

External links

• Works by George Sand at Project Gutenberg
• Works by George Sand at Internet Archive
• Lithograph
• Iconography,by Delacroix, Ordrupgaard Museum, Copenhagen