Le Grand Meaulnes (French:[ləɡʁɑ̃moln]) is the only novel by French author Alain-Fournier, who was killed in the first month of World War I. The novel, published in 1913, a year before the author's death, is somewhat autobiographical, especially the name of the heroine Yvonne, for whom he had a doomed infatuation in Paris. Fifteen-year-old François Seurel narrates the story of his friendship with seventeen-year-old Augustin Meaulnes as the latter searches for his lost love. Impulsive, reckless and heroic, Meaulnes embodies the romantic ideal, the search for the unobtainable, and the mysterious world between childhood and adulthood.[1]
The title is French for "The Great Meaulnes". The difficulties in translating the French grand (meaning big, tall, great, etc.) and le domaine perdu ("lost estate/domain/demesne") have led to a variety of English titles, including The Wanderer, The Lost Domain, Meaulnes: The Lost Domain, The Wanderer or The End of Youth, Le Grand Meaulnes: The Land of the Lost Contentment, The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes) and Big Meaulnes (Le Grand Meaulnes).
Le Grand Meaulnes inspired the title of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby.[2] Despite this similarity, French translators of Fitzgerald's novel struggled in the same way to render the word "great" and chose Gatsby le magnifique (literally Gatsby the Magnificent).[citation needed]
Plot summary
François Seurel, the 15-year-old narrator of the book, is the son of M. Seurel, who is the director of the mixed-ages school in a small village in the Sologne, a region of lakes and sandy forests in the heartland of France. François is intrigued when 17-year-old Augustin Meaulnes, a bright young man from a modest background, arrives at the school. Because of his height, Augustin acquires the nickname "grand" ("tall"). He becomes a hero figure to the class and runs away one evening on an escapade where, after getting lost, he chances on a magical costume party where he is enchanted by the girl of his dreams, Yvonne de Galais, a character inspired by the real-life Yvonne de Quièvrecourt.[3] She lives with her widowed father and her somewhat odd brother Frantz in a vast and ancient family château, Les Sablonnières, which has seen better days. The party was being held to welcome Frantz and the girl he was to marry, Valentine. However, when she does not appear, Frantz attempts suicide but fails.
After returning to school, Meaulnes has only one idea: to again find the mysterious château and the girl with whom he has now fallen in love. However, his local searches fail while at the same time a bizarre young man shows up at the school. It is Frantz de Galais under a different name, trying to escape the pain of having been rejected. Frantz, Meaulnes, and François become friends, and Frantz gives Meaulnes the address of a house in Paris where he says Meaulnes will find his sister, Yvonne de Galais. Meaulnes leaves for Paris only to learn no one lives in the house anymore. He writes to his friend François: "...it is better to forget me. It would be better to forget everything".
François, who has now become a school teacher like his father, finally manages to find Yvonne de Galais and reunites her with Meaulnes. Yvonne still lives with her aging father in what is left of les Sablonnières, which is closer than the two young friends had first imagined in earlier years. Yvonne is still single and confesses to Meaulnes that he is and has always been the love of her life. She accepts, with her father's blessings, Meaulnes' marriage proposal. However, the restless Meaulnes leaves Yvonne the day after their wedding in order to find her lost brother Frantz (whom he had once promised to help) and re-unite him with his fiancée, Valentine. Yvonne remains at the château, where she gives birth to a little girl but dies two days later.
Eventually François lives in the house Meaulnes and Yvonne lived in and raises the little girl there, while waiting for the return of his friend Meaulnes. While looking through old papers, François discovers a handwritten diary by Meaulnes. During the years in Paris (before François brought Meaulnes and Yvonne back together), Meaulnes had met and romanced Valentine, the fiancée who had jilted Frantz on the night of the party.
Meaulnes does return, after a year and eight months, having brought Frantz and Valentine back together. He discovers that Yvonne has died and left a daughter, whom he claims. Four years have elapsed since the beginning of the story.
Inspiration
François Seurel’s childhood is based on Alain-Fournier’s own childhood in the country, where his parents were the school teachers. François’ personality also mirrors his own at that age, as he was more obedient and quiet than he grew up to be.
Everything about Augustin Meaulnes is based on Alain-Fournier himself from his teenage years: his personality, his hopes and dreams and his idealistic quest.
Yvonne De Galais is based on Yvonne de Quièvrecourt, the girl he met, fell in love with and lost track of when he was 19, and who remained the love of his life. Augustin and Yvonne’s first encounter tells almost exactly the tale of their own. Augustin’s quest to find her again mirrors Alain-Fournier’s in Paris from 1905 to 1907, except that his Yvonne was actually married when he found that out.
Frantz De Galais is also Alain-Fournier’s alter ego, reflecting his evolving identity emerging after his own heartbreak: his refusal to fit in the confinement of adulthood, his thirst for freedom and imagination and his hypersensitivity making him be seen as emotionally unstable by regular people.
The character of Valentine and her relationship with Meaulnes is based on Jeanne Bruneau, Alain-Fournier’s sweetheart from 1910 to 1912 and their romance. Like Meaulnes, he felt like he still belonged to Yvonne, but he was also scared of what would become of Jeanne if he didn’t watch over her, and he was reproaching her for not believing enough.
Translations
As of 2012, several English translations were available:[4]
"Meaulnes the Great" is the title of a 2014 bas-relief (130cm x 140cm) carved in limewood by the French artist Jean-Louis Berthod from Albens, Savoy. The relief was inspired by Alain-Fournier's book and is a tribute to the missing people of World War I.
The book is the inspiration for the song 'My Yvonne', the ninth track from UK singer-songwriter Jack Peñate's debut album, Matinée, featuring backing vocals from a then-unknown Adele. Adele is not credited as a featured artist on the song; however, she is credited as a backing vocalist in the album's booklet.
Appearances in other works
Le Grand Meaulnes is referenced multiple times in Simone de Beauvoir’s Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter.
In his autobiography Living to Tell the Tale, Gabriel García Márquez remembers a crewmate from his youth who was an insatiable reader and who owned a copy of Le Grand Meaulnes, which became one of the author's preferred literary masterpieces.[7]
The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings, of which only five are dated. Among his most popular works are genre paintings conveying an atmosphere of intimacy and veiled eroticism.
Henri-Alban Fournier, known by the pseudonym Alain-Fournier, was a French author and soldier. He was the author of a single novel, Le Grand Meaulnes (1913), which has been filmed twice and is considered a classic of French literature. The book is based partly on his childhood.
Wanderer, Wanderers, or The Wanderer may refer to:
Sologne is a natural region in Centre-Val de Loire, France, extending over portions of the departements of Loiret, Loir-et-Cher and Cher. Its area is about 5,000 square kilometres (1,900 sq mi). To its north is the river Loire, to its south the river Cher, while the districts of Sancerre and Berry are to its east. Its inhabitants are known as the Solognots (masculine) and Solognotes (feminine).
Ronald Crichton was a music critic for the Financial Times in the 1960s and 1970s. He was a scion of the Earls of Erne. In his Times obituary he was described as "one of the last of the school of those cultured mandarins who were able to write and talk about all matters concerning the arts."
Frank Davison was a British translator. He is best known for his translation of Alain-Fournier's classic novel Le Grand Meaulnes under the title The Lost Domain. This translation, first published by Oxford University Press in 1959, has remained in print ever since. It is the "classic" translation of the work, praised for its "fine literary English." A review by L.A. Brisson in French Studies called Davison’s translation of Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes “reussit à merveille” – “wonderfully successful.”
Le Grand Meaulnes is a 2006 film directed by Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe, based on the classic novel of the same name. The film premiered on October 4, 2006 in France.
Victor Llona Gastañeta was a writer and translator, born in Lima (Peru) in 1886, who died in San Francisco in 1953.
Épineuil-le-Fleuriel is a commune in the Cher department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France.
Nançay is a commune in the Cher department in central France.
The Prix Alain-Fournier is a French literary prize, awarded by the town of Saint-Amand-Montrond in honour of Alain-Fournier, author of Le Grand Meaulnes. It is intended to give encouragement to a novelist at the beginning of their career, and it can be awarded for first, second or third novels, provided that the author has not previously received any recognition at a national level.
Richard Anthony, born Ricardo Anthony Btesh, was a French pop singer, born in Egypt, who had his greatest success in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Lost Domain may refer to:
Simone Le Bargy, born Pauline Benda but better known by her stage and pen name, Madame Simone, was a French actress and woman of letters.
The Wanderer is a 1967 French drama film based on the novel Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier.
The Salle Gaveau, named after the French piano maker Gaveau, is a classical concert hall in Paris, located at 45-47 rue La Boétie, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. It is particularly intended for chamber music.
Émile-Paul Frères was a French publishing house, whose origins date back to 1881. 'Frères' is French for 'Brothers'. The brand was created by two brothers, Albert and Robert Paul, the sons of the founder Émile Paul. It was active until 1955, before disappearing in 1982. It was the first publisher of Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes.
Marie Ursula Maclean was an Australian scholar of French literature. She is best known for her book, The name of the mother: Writing illegitimacy and for her dedication as a teacher.
Yvonne Chevalier was a French magazine photographer who was active from 1929 to 1970.
↑ "The Girl at the Grand Palais". The Economist. London. December 22, 2012. Retrieved March 27, 2013. "Fitzgerald borrowed its title for The Great Gatsby (and some critics think Fournier's main characters were models for Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald's narrator, and his lovelorn pal)."
↑ Alain-Fournier, Henri (2016). Costello, Anthony (ed.). Poems. Carcanet Press. p.7. ISBN9781784103132.
↑ "Henri Alban Fournier", Contemporary Authors Online (2000) Gale, Detroit
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