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Prosper Mérimée.
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The French author Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870) was a prose writer of the romantic period in France, important for his short stories, which mark the transition from romanticism toward the ...
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Few authors have divided the opinions of readers more than Prosper Mérimée. His stories and novellas are remarkable for their punch and playfulness, but some critics have accused M&eacut...
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Prosper Mérimée is little known as a playwright and is chiefly remembered for his novella Carmen (1846), which provided the basis for Georges Bizet's celebrated 1875 opera. Yet Mé...
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In the following excerpt, Thorold evaluates Mérimeé 's literary style.
Mérimée's literary contribution at first sight seems rather the product of the leisure ...
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In the following essay, Crecelius details Mérimée's transformation of a common folktale into the tightly-structured short story Federigo.
"Ce conte est populaire dans le ro...
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In the following essay, Porter investigates the emotional repression of the narrator in La Vénus d'Ille.
Typical of the fantastic in general, La Vénus d'Ille (1837) associa...
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In the following essay, Galbis recounts the Spanish and Basque sources of plot and character in Mérimeé's Carmen.
It is a well-documented fact that the basic source for Mér...
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In the following essay, Crecelius explores the moral dimension of narrative form and the multiplicity of viewpoints in Colomba.
Colomba has long been one of Mérimée's best-known a...
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In the following essay, Carpenter notes the thematic importance of uncertainty, analogy, and madness to Mérimée's La Vénus d'Ille.
Like so many of his stories, La V&...
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In the following essay, Cogman describes the function of the elder and younger narrative voices in Mérimée's Carmen, noting their relation to the work's themes of freedom a...
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In the following essay, Carpenter examines Mérimeé's short story La chambre bleue as a marginal and subversive text that conjoins themes of sex and death, transgression and commun...
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In the following essay, Edwards and Edwards observe the manner in which the title character of Mérimeé 's Carmen is transformed from a stereotypical femme fatale to a fully-realiz...
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In the following excerpt, Bowman explores narrative technique, plot structure and devices, and the thematic operations of fate in Mérimée's fiction.
Psychological Realism
Although...
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In the following excerpt (with footnotes numbered continuously), Dale outlines Mérimeé's aesthetic theory.
Details were Mérimée's chief formal concern: he kne...
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In the following essay, King assesses the dramatic value of Mérimée's theatrical works.
Prosper Mérimée's literary reputation rests particularly on the two co...
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In the following essay, Raitt summarizes the importance of historical authenticity to Mérimeé 's fictional works.
Prosper Mérimée, born in 1803, grew up at a time wh...
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In the following essay, Raitt studies the technique of Mérimeé's Chronique du règne de Charles IX and evaluates his work as a historical novelist.
. . . remarquons seuleme...
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In the following essay, Pilkington examines the "gap between objective reality and subjective viewpoint" elicited by the narrator of "La Vénus d'Ille"
The rol...
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In the following essay, Sivert surveys the motif of fear, especially the fear of public humiliation, throughout Mérimée's fiction.
Fear, whether from natural or supernatural cause...
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In the following essay, Hamilton traces evidence of pagan myth in the story and symbolism of "Mateo Falcone."
The historical position of Mateo Falcone (1829) as the "literary prot...
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In the following essay, Carpenter offers a stylistic analysis of “La Chambre bleue,” focusing on Mérimée's use of distinct narrative threads in the story and its rel...
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In the following essay, Mortimer elucidates the ambiguous meanings of several stories, including “The Venus d'Ille,” concluding that Mérimée intended uncertainty in ...
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In the following essay, Cropper determines the symbolic significance of the French game le jeu de paume in “The Venus d'Ille.”
For centuries le jeu de paume, a precursor to our mo...
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In the following essay, Jotcham provides an overview of Mérimée's life and short fiction.
‘I am one of those who have a strong liking for bandits—not that I have any...
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In the following essay, Avni applies speech act theory to the story “The Venus d'Ille.”
We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the con...
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In the following essay, Little finds connections between “Tamango” and Aphra Behn's novel Oroonoko.
In both Mrs Aphra Behn's most celebrated novel, Oroonoko; or The Royal S...
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In the following essay, Rigolot offers a reading of “The Venus d'Ille” in order “to shed some light on the complex definition of the fantastic as a displaced mode of ekphra...
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In the following essay, Cogman proposes a link between Mérimée's interest in storytelling and the tale “La Partie de trictrac.”
“La Partie de trictrac”...
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In the following essay, MacKenzie examines the duality theme and its relationship to the representation of space and the role of the matecznik in “Lokis.”
“Lokis” was one o...
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In the following essay, Cropper traces connections between Mérimée's essay “Les Mormons” and his story “The Venus d'Ille.”
Appointed Inspector G...
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Prosper Mérimée
Prosper Merimee
Critical Essay by Algar Thorold
