Jehrar Nerval French romantic poet Date of Birth: 22.05.1808 Country: France

Biography of Gérard de Nerval

Gérard de Nerval was a French Romantic poet who was born on May 22, 1808, in Paris. He came from a family of military doctors and received his education at the Lycée Charlemagne in Paris, where he became acquainted with many future writers of the Romantic movement in the 1830s.

At the beginning of his literary career, Nerval formed close friendships with Théophile Gautier, Victor Hugo, and others. In 1826, he published his first poems in a collection titled "Napoleon and Valiant France" (Napoleon et la France guerrière). Two years later, he published a translation of the first part of Goethe's "Faust," which impressed the German poet himself.

After 1830, Nerval participated in the literary battles of the time and turned to playwriting. Despite collaborating with Alexandre Dumas senior, Nerval was unable to write a play that achieved success with the public. When he learned that the object of his affection, actress Jenny Colon, had married someone else, he embarked on erratic journeys. Upon receiving news of her death, he set off for the East.

His substantial work, "Scenes of Oriental Life" (Scènes de la vie orientale), began to be published in 1846. However, upon his return to Paris, his bouts of mental illness increased. The hallucinations he experienced during his periods of madness were described in his prose work, "Aurélia" (1855). This peculiar work, where dreams blend with reality, gained significant success among French Surrealists in the 1920s.

Nevertheless, Nerval's most artistically accomplished novella is considered to be "Sylvie" (1853) – a pastoral autobiography of a teenager. Eventually, exhausted by poverty and constant bouts of insanity, Nerval was found hanged in one of the alleys of Paris on January 26, 1855.

During Nerval's lifetime, his poetry was published in periodicals or alongside his prose works. The first edition that allowed his poetic talent to be fully appreciated was not released until 1877.