The background of Dumas' drama creation is extremely broad. For example, the historical drama Henry III and His Court is set in the French religious war of16th century, while the five-act drama Anthony is set in the upper class of the Restoration Dynasty.
As a member of the romantic literary camp in the19th century, he advocated the abolition of many rules and regulations formulated by classicism for drama. Like many romantic writers, he believes that only when the drama shows the passion of life to the audience will the audience be moved. In his historical drama Henry III and His Court, which was written on 1829, his creative ideas began to be reflected. This drama, which first appeared in the literary world, is actually the best interpretation of his own personality. narrate
Taking real historical events and historical figures as narrative objects and adding bold fiction and imagination are the remarkable characteristics of Dumas' historical narrative novels. In Dumas' historical narrative novels, the goal of historical pursuit is no longer truth and objectivity, but entertainment as the only purport. Therefore, the popular description of history is the most important achievement in Dumas' literary creation career. However, his unique creative idea is quite different from the historical goal of pursuing objective and true reproduction of history. Therefore, Dumas has no lofty position in the history of French literature, but compared with many contemporary writers, he has a large number of readers.
Dumas' achievements in the creation of popular historical narrative novels are beyond doubt. However, although many writers in the history of literature fully affirmed his historical narrative novels and he has a large number of readers in the world, he did not enjoy a lofty position in the history of French literature. To a great extent, this stems from his attitude of creating historical narrative novels. He has publicly stated that history is only a nail in his novel, and at the same time, he has never admitted what genre he belongs to and what kind of banner he has set up in literature. Entertainment is his sole purpose in making history.
Regarding Dumas' way of narrating history, Mo Luoya thinks that in Dumas' historical narrative novels, when narrating historical events, on the one hand, the writer takes the real history as a clue to the novel; On the other hand, describing the fictional hero as another clue makes the fictional hero move in real historical events and makes the history recorded in his historical narrative novels look true and false. The novel has become the main style of Dumas' works to express this grand historical scene.
Dumas hardly used simple narration, but used dialogue to illustrate the historical background and the development of the story. The dialogue also confessed the life experiences of many protagonists. Most conversations are short and powerful, with a strong sense of rhythm.
Writing style
In Madame Monsoreau, one of Dumas' representative works, Dumas once said: "Historical events have such a characteristic that they often show their importance in the environment before them." This reflects the reason why writers attach importance to the realistic description of historical background in historical narrative novels. Therefore, although Dumas' historical narrative novels are often criticized for arbitrarily changing the authenticity of historical events, many foreign readers learn about major historical events in French history and experience the alternate changes of French history from reading Dumas' historical narrative novels.
Dumas closely combined the novel style with history, because the novel's stylistic characteristics are that it can accommodate a huge social life, show Dumas grand historical narrative techniques, and combine the rich historical materials accumulated by writers with the ability to master historical themes, thus including more real history in fictional stories. His historical narrative novels describe the historical background with great momentum.
Dumas' heroic historical view is embodied in the content of the novel text. Dumas believes that every development and change in history is created by outstanding people, and unusual people in history always control the process of historical development. This concept is reflected in the titles of some of his novels: For example, The Count of Monte Cristo centers on the revenge of the sailor Edmund Donders, and the Count of Monte Cristo is the central figure in the novel. Another example is Knight in the Red Chamber, which is set in the French Revolution. The book revolves around the rescue of Queen Louis XVI by the Red Chamber Knight. The title of the book also shows that the Knight in the Red Chamber is the main character of this book.
Dumas let many real or fictional historical figures appear together in such a historical situation. Participating in the historical development process of the novel has shaped many vivid characters of different classes. Even in the face of a long time span and a large number of historical events, the grand narrative is orderly. Therefore, the historical world constructed by Dumas in historical narrative novels has been praised by many contemporary writers.
It can be said that Dumas' historical narrative novels constantly construct history with heroes, shape heroes with history, and integrate heroes and history into the novels. These three are mutually constructed and interdependent.
Dumas' historical narrative novels are based on real historical figures and events, and add his own subjective imagination and fiction. The writer tells stories in a certain time sequence by mixing the descriptions of fictional characters and real characters. Therefore, when Dumas' historical narrative novels are evaluated by analyzing the historical sense and humanistic care contained in the novel text by restoring the history, Dumas' novel text does not enjoy a lofty position in the history of literature.
Dumas' historical narrative novels do not take objective truth as the established goal. There is no point at all to the historical facts themselves. But to choose a possibility as the center of the direction in the historical space. And this center is a more real history than the history built by the writer himself.
This technique is a stronger tendency to deviate from history in Dumas' historical narrative novels. However, because the materials are all selected from historical events, everything revolves around the historical events described, and the historical theme itself has a cohesive force. Therefore, Dumas' historical narrative novels deviate from the historical center and are also reconstructing history.
Many of Dumas later historical dramas are adapted from his own best-selling historical narrative novels. This shows from the side that the historical narrative novels created by Dumas contain dramatic elements that can be easily adapted into scripts. Dumas' historical narrative novels are mostly based on major historical events, which can always give readers a coherent reading experience when describing long-span historical events and expressing complex court contradictions. The main reason is that Dumas used drama to create novels. Get rid of the long narrative style of long historical narrative novels.
Dumas' main literary achievement lies in the creation of historical narrative novels. Moreover, most of his historical narrative novels are long historical narrative novels, and historical narrative novels are also a progressive art like novels. The process of historical conflict is characterized by gradual escalation. The transformation of scenes in each chapter and the integration of static scenery elements increase the dramatic effect of the novel. Correspondingly, a large number of dialogues are directly used to promote the development of the plot, resulting in the absence of the narrator. It can directly reflect the contradictions and conflicts between characters and increase the antagonism between characters.
Dumas began to write by writing plays. In his novels, dialogue occupies a large proportion. This actually retains the characteristics of writing scripts. To some extent, Dumas' novels are dramatic. His novels are easily adapted into plays. Dialogue plays a variety of roles in his novels. First, portray the characters through dialogue. Dumas rarely gives long descriptions of characters, and most of the characters' personalities are expressed through actions and dialogues.
The author sometimes uses only one sentence to enlighten people's mental outlook. For example, at the beginning of The Count of Monte Cristo, Dundees returned to Marseille and sadly reported to the owner, Old Morrel: "We have lost our brave captain Lesquereux." The next sentence is: "Where is the goods?" The shopkeeper asked anxiously. In just two words, it accurately shows Morrel's mental state that he cares more about goods than people. Old Morrel is a positive figure, but he is a capitalist after all.
Hero image
The protagonist in the novel works in the historical real environment created by the writer. These characters are brave, witty and adventurous, and regard this adventure as a pleasure. In the end, they often achieved things that ordinary people could not achieve because of coincidence and courage, thus promoting and changing the development of history. For example, the adventurous fourth musketeer D 'Artagnan and his three partners Ados, Bordeaux and aramis in three musketeers; The brave French hero Bessie in Madame Monsolo; Larmor and Kokona who are loyal to each other in The Princess; Laurent and Mogang in A Tale of Two Cities: the red knight who was killed to rescue Queen Louis XVI in The Red Knight, and so on. Dumas constructs history in the text with a heroic image different from ordinary people.
Dumas hero can be said to be the product of the times. Heroic images in novel texts always have extraordinary actions and courage. Most of these heroes are brave and resourceful. Even in the complicated political struggle, they still have their own personality and ability to control the situation. In the process of historical narration, it also has the spirit of justice and noble chivalry. This has a connection with the hero's spiritual aspect.
However, the difference is that Dumas-style heroes no longer have high spiritual value. When evaluating the character D 'Artagnan in three musketeers, the translator said: "D 'Artagnan is greedy for almost everything, pursuing fame, money, status, femininity and so on. It was the adventurous spirit inspired by greed that led him to a life full of temptations. "
Dumas-style heroes are more about making people understand the meaning of wealth, body and senses. They don't have the spiritual value of heroes, and these heroes only realize lower value in the objective value hierarchy order. They can arouse readers' fascination rather than reverence. Although these heroic images are still heroic, this heroic purpose is shaped from the ubiquitous value consciousness and is the product of hero reconstruction. Therefore, even if these images can achieve deeds that ordinary people can't, he no longer has heroic value.