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Updated: May 2, 2025
But the students of the future, while recognizing an obvious affinity between the other two, may be puzzled to find Daudet's name conjoined with theirs. Decidedly, Daudet belonged to the Realistic School. But, above all, he was an impressionist.
Whatever he sacrificed, it was not actuality. His draughtsmanship never falters, his touch is never infirm. I have seen his portraits of Verlaine, Daudet, Edmond de Goncourt, Geffroy, of the artist himself and many others. The Verlaine is a veritable evocation. It was painted at one séance of several hours, and the poet, it is said, did not sit still or keep silence for a moment.
More perhaps is due to what, as Englishmen think, is the lack of HUMOUR in the most brilliant and witty of races. We have friends many in Moliere, in Dumas, in Rabelais; but it is far more difficult to be familiar, at ease, and happy in the circles to which Madame Sand, M. Daudet, M. Flaubert, or M. Paul Bourget introduce us.
=Irony in Setting.= An emotional contrast of this nature between the mood of the characters and the mood of the setting may be pushed to the point of irony. In a story by Alphonse Daudet, entitled "The Elixir of the Reverend Father Gaucher," a certain monastery is saved from financial ruin by the sale of a cordial which Father Gaucher has invented and distilled.
Here was a life more winsome, more appealing, more complete than any creation of the genius of the man that lived it a life which, whether we know it in detail or not, explains in part the fascination Daudet exerts upon us and the conviction we cherish that, whatever ravages time may make among his books, the memory of their writer will not fade from the hearts of men.
Of late, many writers of the realist school have striven to outdo their predecessors in carrying out the principles of Balzac; among these are Gaboriau, Cherbulliez, Droz, Belot, Alphonse Daudet. CRITICISM. Previous to the Romantic movement in France the office of criticism had been to compare all literary productions with certain established rules, and to judge them accordingly.
Yet in a way this swerving into the devious orbit of the novel of intense purpose helped Daudet in his progress towards naturalism, and imparted something of stability to his methods of work. Sapho, which appeared next, was the first of his novels that left little to be desired in the way of artistic unity and cumulative power.
Tartarin is a hunter of lions and charmer of women, a true "produit du midi," as Daudet says, who has the most fantastic and fabulous adventures. He is a minimized Don Quixote, with much less dignity, but with equal good faith; and the story of his exploits is a little masterpiece of the light comical.
Daudet relates that in his attempt to shed a humorous light upon some of the more vivid phases of the Provençal character he selected Tarascon at a venture; not because the temperament of its natives is more vainglorious than that of their neighbours, or their rebellion against the "despotism of fact" more marked, but simply because he had to name a particular Provençal city.
An emotional contrast of this nature between the mood of the characters and the mood of the setting may be pushed to the point of irony. In a story by Alphonse Daudet, entitled "The Elixir of the Reverend Father Gaucher," a certain monastery is saved from financial ruin by the sale of a cordial which Father Gaucher has invented and distilled.
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