Claudine at School

Last updated
Claudine at School
Claudine ecole colette.jpg
First edition cover of Claudine à l'école with Willy as author
Author Colette
Original titleClaudine à l'école
Translator Antonia White
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench
Series Claudine
Genrecoming-of-age
Publisher Willy (1st edition)
Publication date
1900
Published in English
1957
Media typePrint

Claudine at School (French : Claudine à l'école) is a 1900 novel by the French writer Colette. The narrative recounts the final year of secondary school of 15-year-old Claudine, her brazen confrontations with her headmistress, Mlle Sergent, and her fellow students. It was Colette's first published novel, originally attributed to her first husband, the writer Willy. The work is assumed to be highly autobiographical, and includes lyrical descriptions of the Burgundian countryside, where Colette grew up.

Contents

Plot

Claudine, a fifteen-year-old girl, lives in Montigny, with her father, who is more interested in mollusks than in his daughter. Claudine attends the small village school, which is the primary location of her many adventures, presented as an intimate journal. The journal begins with the new school year, marked by the arrival of the new headmistress, Miss Sergent, and her assistant, Miss Aimée Lanthenay, as well as the boys' instructors, Mr. Duplessis and Mr. Rabastens. Although Claudine begins an affair early on with Miss Lanthenay, Miss Sergent soon discovers the liaison and discourages Miss Lanthenay, ultimately taking her on as her own lover. Claudine feels betrayed and causes trouble for the two women with the help of her friends, cynical Anaïs and childlike Marie Belhomme. Miss Lanthenay's sister Luce arrives at school, and Claudine mistreats her, but Luce idolizes Claudine nonetheless. Some major events of the school year documented in the novel are the final exams, the opening of the new school, and a ball to mark the visit of an important political minister to the town.

At the end of the book, everyone is at the ball when Miss Sergent's mother suddenly throws a man's shoe downstairs into the parlor from the living quarters upstairs. Everyone is silent downstairs as the elder Sergent yells at her daughter for disgracing the family by sleeping with the superintendent of the school district. Miss Sergent's attraction to the man had been mentioned earlier by Claudine, who dismissed it when Sergent stole Aimée away from her. Publicly humiliated, Miss Lanthenay runs off crying while Luce and Claudine laugh.

Major themes

Claudine at School as well as being a coming of age story is an example of homoerotic fiction in the tradition of Gertrude Stein's Fernhurst (1904), Ivy Compton-Burnett's More Women than Men (1934), Christa Winsloe's The Child Manuela (1933), or Dorothy Bussy's Olivia (1949). [1]

Reception

Upon its publication in 1900, Colette's novel was heralded by Charles Marras for its "maturity of language and style". [2] It was immediately successful, yet it brought Colette scandal as well. [3]

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Claudine at School has had several French film adaptations.

On August 7, 1910, the New York Times reported: "Paris, Aug. 6. – G. P. Centenini, in conjunction with Gabriel Astruc, has obtained from Rudolph Berger the right of representation in the United States of Berger's operetta Claudine, the libretto of which is based on a series of lively French novels by Willy, which have had considerable vogue. Berger is a Viennese and Parisian combined. He has written many popular waltzes, of one of which 2,000,000 copies were sold in a year. Claudine will be produced in Paris at the Moulin Rouge." The Actors' Charitable Trust in London [4] has an A4 coloured poster (by Clérice Frères) for the Moulin Rouge production of Claudine which does mention Colette: "Opérette en 3 Actes de Willy, d'après les Romans de Willy & Colette Willy."

Related Research Articles

The Claudine series consists of four early novels by French authors Colette and Henry Gauthier-Villars, published 1900–1904. Written in diary form, they describe the growth to maturity of a young girl, Claudine. Aged fifteen at the beginning of the first book, Claudine à l'école, the series describes her education and experiences as she grows up. All the books are written in first-person with the first three having Claudine herself as the narrator. The last in the series, Claudine s'en va, introduces a new narrator, Annie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colette</span> French novelist

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, known mononymously as Colette, was a French author and woman of letters. She was also a mime, actress, and journalist. Colette is best known in the English-speaking world for her 1944 novella Gigi, which was the basis for the 1958 film and the 1973 stage production of the same name. Her short story collection The Tendrils of the Vine is also famous in France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moulin Rouge</span> Cabaret in Paris, France

Moulin Rouge is a cabaret in Paris, on Boulevard de Clichy, at Place Blanche, the intersection of, and terminus of Rue Blanche.

<i>Moulin Rouge</i> (1952 film) 1952 British film

Moulin Rouge is a 1952 British drama film directed by John Huston, produced by John and James Woolf for their Romulus Films company and released by United Artists. The film is set in Paris in the late 19th century, following artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in the city's bohemian subculture in and around the burlesque palace the Moulin Rouge. The screenplay is by Huston, based on the 1950 novel by Pierre La Mure. The cinematography was by Oswald Morris. This film was screened at the 14th Venice International Film Festival where it won the Silver Lion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Avril</span> French can-can dancer painted by Toulouse-Lautrec (1868-1943)

Jane Avril was a French can-can dancer made famous by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec through his paintings. Extremely thin, "given to jerky movements and sudden contortions", she was nicknamed La Mélinite, after an explosive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Pan collar</span>

A Peter Pan collar is a style of clothing collar, flat in design with rounded corners. It is named after the collar of Maude Adams's costume in her 1905 role as Peter Pan, although similar styles had been worn before this date.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie Darrieussecq</span> French writer

Marie Darrieussecq is a French writer. She is also a translator, and has practised as a psychoanalyst.

Antonia White was a British writer and translator, known primarily for Frost in May, a semi-autobiographical novel set in a convent school. It was the first book reissued by Virago Press in 1978, as part of their Modern Classics series of books by previously neglected women authors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Gauthier-Villars</span> French author

Henry Gauthier-Villars, known by the pen name Willy[vili], was a French fin de siècle writer and music critic who is today mostly known as the mentor and first husband of Colette. Other pseudonyms used by Gauthiers-Villars are: Henry Maugis, Robert Parville, l’Ex-ouvreuse du Cirque d’été, L’Ouvreuse, L’Ouvreuse du Cirque d’été, Jim Smiley, Henry Willy, Boris Zichine.

Michel Georges-Michel, was a French painter, journalist, novelist, and translator of English and American authors. He was born in Paris.

If I Had to Do It All Over Again is a film directed by Claude Lelouch, released in 1976.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olivia (Bussy novel)</span> 1949 novel by Dorothy Bussy

Olivia is the only novel by Dorothy Bussy ; it was published in 1949 by Hogarth Press, the publishing house founded by Leonard and Virginia Woolf. Bussy wrote it in French and signed her work with the pseudonym "Olivia." "Olivia" had been the name of one of Dorothy's sisters who died in infancy. The book was translated into English and then retranslated back into French. Bussy dedicated it "to the very dear memory of Virginia W."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agnès Desarthe</span> French writer

Agnès Desarthe is a French novelist, children's writer and translator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mathilde de Morny</span> French painter

Mathilde de Morny was a French aristocrat and artist. Morny was also known by the nickname "Missy" or by the artistic pseudonym "Yssim", or as "Max", "Uncle Max", or "Monsieur le Marquis". Active as a sculptor and painter, Morny studied under Comte Saint-Cène and the sculptor Édouard-Gustave-Louis Millet de Marcilly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paulette Poujol-Oriol</span>

Paulette Poujol-Oriol was a Haitian educator, actress, dramaturge, feminist and writer. Fluent in French, Creole, English, Spanish, German, and Italian, she contributed to Haitian arts and literature, and founded Picolo Teatro, a performing arts school for children. She has been recognized as one of Haiti's leading literary figures as well as one of the most active players in Haiti's feminist movement.

Colette Yver French writer

Colette Yver was a French Roman Catholic writer from Normandy, the winner of the 1907 Prix Femina for her work Princesses de science.

<i>Colette</i> (2018 film) 2018 film by Wash Westmoreland

Colette is a 2018 biographical drama film directed by Wash Westmoreland, from a screenplay by Westmoreland, Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Richard Glatzer, based upon the life of the French novelist Colette. It stars Keira Knightley, Dominic West, Eleanor Tomlinson, and Denise Gough.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aimée Campton</span>

Aimée Campton or Miss Campton was a dancer, music hall artist, postcard beauty and a French actress of English origin. A silent film actress, she played the lead role in a series of French-made Maud films in the 1910s.

<i>Claudine at School</i> (film) 1937 film

Claudine at School is a 1937 French comedy film directed by Serge de Poligny and starring Max Dearly, Pierre Brasseur and Suzet Maïs. It is an adaptation of the 1900 novel of the same title by Colette.

Jeannie Urquhart or Georgie Raoul–Duval was an American writer, playwright, and socialite. She is mainly remembered for having been in a ménage-a-trois with Colette and Colette's husband Henry Gauthier–Villars.

References

  1. Blackmer, Corinne E. (Fall 1995). "The Finishing Touch and the Tradition of Homoerotic Girls' School Fictions". Review of Contemporary Fiction. 15 (3): 32–39.
  2. Kristeva, Julia (2005). Colette. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 448. ISBN   9780231128971.
  3. Dugast, Francine. "Views of Colette". Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2007-10-01.
  4. tactactors.org