Tag Archives: Alexandre Dumas

fatal showplace

To give a great party is a dangerous thing. A few famous balls have been enshrined in history and golden legend-none more so than the Duchess of Richmond’s in Brussels on the eve of Waterloo, remembered in the celebrated lines … Continue reading

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acts of despair in the face of infinity

“Debauchery,” the Goncourts wrote in 1861,”is perhaps an act of despair in the face of infinity.” …The Goncourts wrote prolifically in every genre, but they never had the kind of success they so desperately wanted. They were less admired than … Continue reading

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goncourt: red-hot scalpel

The bothers Goncourt, Edmond and Jules, were nobly born. They were rich. But they had the misfortune to be intelligent. Therefore, they were unhappy. They wanted to be famous; they longed to be eminent authors, princes in the realm of … Continue reading

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sultans of swing: grim tunes

The beheaded and the beholden. The Grand Seraglio. Within its walls the Turkish Sultans sought the answer to a perplexing and ancient question: Can absolute power bring absolute bliss? It brought a lot of absolutes to be sure, and the … Continue reading

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Cannes Festival: return from elba

After his daring escape from Elba in 1815, the Emperor Napoleon landed at Golfe-Juan.It was his last great adventure before Waterloo, and it can be looked back as a tragic comedy. He set out for Cannes at midnight, taking three … Continue reading

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small is beautiful: a free man in paris

It was a time when Paris was a city for the young. Students, painters, intellectuals, journalists, grisettes: all were there along with a young German poet who recorded a period of creative ferment between one revolution and the next. …. … Continue reading

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Sand and Chopin….. etudes of the muse or the ballade of the…vampire

George Sand is often cast as the villain of the piece, though actually, she did wonders for Frederic Chopin by shielding him from the buffetings of the world. Chopin’s connection with Madame Dudevant, the French novelist, better known as “George … Continue reading

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ROCK HIS GYPSY SOUL: THE STORMY “CORINTHIAN”

“There’s no one more punctual than a woman one doesn’t love” ( “Kean” by Jean Paul Sartre ) From its declining fortunes Drury Lane Theatre was to be rescued, briefly, by the arrival of Edmund Kean, the most fiery and … Continue reading

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NEGATIVE CAPABILITY:Curtain Call For The Complexity of Sympathy

“Brown and Dilke walked with me & back from the Christmas pantomime. I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form … Continue reading

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ANARCHY OF THE PASSIONS: BEAUTY OF OPPOSITES

Edmund Kean (1790-1833) was acclaimed as the greatest actor of his time. Something of a prodigy, while still a teenager he gave a command performance for King George III at Windsor Castle. Coleridge said that watching Kean perform “was like … Continue reading

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