Guy de Maupassant, who is often considered as the most important short-story writer of the European continent, lived in the 19th century and served in the Franco-Prussian war.
His work can be categorized into an early and a late period, the former being arguably one which produced stories that show a pronounced zeal for life, and the latter being characterized by notably darker themes. Worth noting is that the latter period includes all of his work that is linked to the literature related to madness, or horror, and was a direct influence to later writers of that genre, like Arthur Machen and H.P.Lovecraft. Among his more established admirers was his contemporary german philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who had expressed the view that Maupassant was arguably a great psychologist.
Maupassant wrote a number of stories centered on the Franco-Prussian war. Almost all have french protagonists, one at least has a german protagonist (The adventure of Walter Schnaffs), and there are many german antagonists to be found. The german soldiers, and more often their higher ranking officers, are being portrayed as being mostly brutal against the french people who they now occupy. In one story a german member of the prussian army challenges a french man to a duel, after repeatedly trying to humiliate him. In another a french woman takes her revenge on the german officers who used her for sexual ends, by claiming to have spread sexually transmitted diseases. She is of the view that she should be ranked as a better fighter for France than many of her countrymen, since in this way she caused the demise of more germans.
Other stories have the war as their background, but focus on different issues, such as the small story titled "Two little soldiers".
I respect the work of De Maupassant highly. He is one of my favorite writers. In my view he managed to capture a potent image of what brutal war is about. It could be argued that his own testament, as a veteran of that war, along with his ability to weave a striking narrative, makes his reflection on images from that war of importance which could even transcend the realm of letters. While De Maupassant was not a historian, he was nonetheless a man of intelligence and acute perception. His works related to the war do not seem to be centered on any direct will to portray a caricature of the germans; they are arguably mostly focused on causing emotions and thought, as any interesting work of literature, no matter its relation to specific historic events, should have as an end.
And while it would be uncharacteristic to seek to study the historic event of that war mostly through the literary recollections of it, i think it can be said that the latter can be of use as a complimentary reading, moreso when they are produced by such well-established writers, by people of that period, and, finally, members of one of the armies which took part in the war itself.
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His work can be categorized into an early and a late period, the former being arguably one which produced stories that show a pronounced zeal for life, and the latter being characterized by notably darker themes. Worth noting is that the latter period includes all of his work that is linked to the literature related to madness, or horror, and was a direct influence to later writers of that genre, like Arthur Machen and H.P.Lovecraft. Among his more established admirers was his contemporary german philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who had expressed the view that Maupassant was arguably a great psychologist.
Maupassant wrote a number of stories centered on the Franco-Prussian war. Almost all have french protagonists, one at least has a german protagonist (The adventure of Walter Schnaffs), and there are many german antagonists to be found. The german soldiers, and more often their higher ranking officers, are being portrayed as being mostly brutal against the french people who they now occupy. In one story a german member of the prussian army challenges a french man to a duel, after repeatedly trying to humiliate him. In another a french woman takes her revenge on the german officers who used her for sexual ends, by claiming to have spread sexually transmitted diseases. She is of the view that she should be ranked as a better fighter for France than many of her countrymen, since in this way she caused the demise of more germans.
Other stories have the war as their background, but focus on different issues, such as the small story titled "Two little soldiers".
I respect the work of De Maupassant highly. He is one of my favorite writers. In my view he managed to capture a potent image of what brutal war is about. It could be argued that his own testament, as a veteran of that war, along with his ability to weave a striking narrative, makes his reflection on images from that war of importance which could even transcend the realm of letters. While De Maupassant was not a historian, he was nonetheless a man of intelligence and acute perception. His works related to the war do not seem to be centered on any direct will to portray a caricature of the germans; they are arguably mostly focused on causing emotions and thought, as any interesting work of literature, no matter its relation to specific historic events, should have as an end.
And while it would be uncharacteristic to seek to study the historic event of that war mostly through the literary recollections of it, i think it can be said that the latter can be of use as a complimentary reading, moreso when they are produced by such well-established writers, by people of that period, and, finally, members of one of the armies which took part in the war itself.
