Guillaume Victor Émile Augier (September 17, 1820 - October 25, 1889), was a French dramatist. September 17 is the 260th day of the year (261st in leap years). ... 1820 was a leap year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... October 25 is the 298th day of the year (299th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 67 days remaining. ... 1889 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... The French Republic or France (French: République française or France) is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents. ... A dramatist is an author of dramatic compositions, usually plays. ...

Life

He was born at Valence, Drôme, the grandson of Pigault Lebrun, and belonged to the well-to-do bourgeoisie in spirit as well as by birth. After a good education and legal training, he wrote a play in two acts and in verse, La Cigue (1844), which was refused at the Théâtre Français, but produced with as considerable success at the Odéon. This settled his career. From then on, at fairly regular intervals, either alone or in collaboration with other writers - Jules Sandeau, Eugène Marin Labiche, Édouard Foussier - he produced plays such as Le Fils de Giboyer (1862) - which was regarded as an attack on the clerical party in France, and was surely brought out by the direct intervention of the emperor. His last comedy, Les Fourchambault, belongs to the year 1879. Location within France Valence is a commune in south-eastern France, the capital of the département of Drôme, situated on the left bank of the Rhône, 65 miles south of Lyon on the railway to Marseille. ... Drôme is a département in southeastern France named after the Drôme River. ... Bourgeois at the end of the thirteenth century. ... Events January 15 - University of Notre Dame receives its charter from Indiana. ... The Comédie-Française or Théâtre français is the only state theater in France. ... Leonard Sylvain Julien (Jules) Sandeau (February 19, 1811 - April 24, 1883), was a French novelist. ... Events January-March January 10 - End of term for John Gately Downey, 7th Governor of California. ... Comedy is the use of humour in the performing arts. ... 1879 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

After that date he wrote no more, restrained by the fear of producing inferior work. The Académie française had long before, on March 31, 1857, elected him to be one of its members. He died in his house at Croissy-sur-Seine. The Académie française, or French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. ... March 31 is the 90th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (91st in Leap years). ... 1857 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Croissy-sur-Seine is a small suburban town on the western outskirts of Paris. ...

Works

Augier described his own life as "without incident". L'Aventurière (1848), the first of his important works, already shows a deviation from romantic ideals; and in the Ménage d'Olympe (1855) the courtesan is shown as she is, not glorified as in Dumas's Dame aux Camélias. In Gabrielle (1849), the husband, not the lover, is the sympathetic character. In the Lionnes pauvres (1858) the wife who ls her favours comes under the lash. Greed of gold, social moralization, ultramontanism, lust of power, these are satirized Les Effrontés (1861), Le Fils de Giboyer (1862), La Contagion announced under the title of Le Baron d'Estrigaud (1866), Lions et renards (1869) - which, with Le Gendre de Monsieur Poirier (354), written in collaboration with Jules Sandeau, reach the high water mark of Augier's art; in Philiberte (1853) he proced a graceful and delicate drawing-room comedy; and in Jean de Thommeray, acted in 1873 after the great reverses of 1870, the regenerating note of patriotism rings high and clear. Alexandre Dumas, fils ( July 27, 1824 – November 27, 1895) was the son of Alexandre Dumas, père, who followed in his fathers footsteps becoming a celebrated author and playwright. ...

His last two dramas, Madame Caverlet (1876) and Les Fourchambault (1879), are problem plays. But it would be unfair to suggest that Augier was a mere preacher. He was a moralist in the same sense in which the term can be applied to Molière and the great dramatists. Nor does the interest of dramas depend on elaborate plot. It springs from character. His men and women are real, several of them typical. Augier's first drama, La Cigue, belongs to a time (1844) when romantic drama was on the wane; and his almost elusively domestic range of subject scarcely lends itself to lyric tbursts of pure poetry. His verse, if not that of a great poet, has excellent dramatic qualities, while the prose of his prose dramas is admirable for directness, alertness, sinew and a large and effective wit. Molière, engraved frontispiece to his Works Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, better known as Molière ( January 15, 1622 – February 17, 1673), was a French theatre writer, director and actor, one of the masters of comic satire. ...

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica ( 1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ...