Jean Richepin

Jean Richepin (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ ʁiʃpɛ̃]; 4 February 1849 – 12 December 1926) was a French poet, novelist and dramatist.

Biography

Born on 4 February 1849 at Médéa, French Algeria, Jean Richepin was the son of an army doctor.

At school and at the École Normale Supérieure he gave evidence of brilliant, if somewhat undisciplined, powers, for which he found physical vent in different directions—first as a franc-tireur in the Franco-German War, and afterwards as actor, sailor and stevedore—and an intellectual outlet in the writing of poems, plays and novels which vividly reflected his erratic but unmistakable talent. A play, L'Étoile, written by him in collaboration with André Gill (1840–1885), was produced in 1873; but Richepin was virtually unknown until the publication, in 1876, of a volume of verse entitled La Chanson des gueux, a declaration of war against the bourgeoisie, according to Jacques Cellard: Richepin's outspokenness resulted in his being imprisoned and fined for outrage aux mœurs. The collection was republished, without the contentious pieces, which were published separately in Brussels in 1881.

The same quality characterized his succeeding volumes of verse: Les Caresses (1877), Les Blasphèmes (1884), La Mer (1886), Mes paradis (1894), La Bombarde (1899). His novels have developed in style from the morbidity and brutality of Les morts bizarres (1876), La Glu (1881) and Le Pavé (1883) to the more thoughtful psychology of Madame André (1878), Sophie Monnier (1884), Cisarine (1888), L'Aîné (1893), Grandes amoureuses (1896) and La Gibasse (1899), and the more simple portrayal of life in Miarka (1883), Les Braves Gens (1886), Truandailles (1890), La Miseloque (1892) and Flamboche (1895).