Stendhal. Pseudonym of Henri Beyle (1783-1842)

Stendhal. Pseudonym of Henri Beyle (1783-1842)

French novelist, known as one of the first outstanding authors of the psychological novel in France, represented by his studies, considered to be partly autobiographical, of the proud and egotistic nature involved in love and war. His chief works are De l'Amour ( 1822), a series of notes on the effects of four types of love on a variety of temperaments; Armance ( 1827); Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black; 1830), regarded as one of the most important works in the development of the 19th-century novel; La Chartreuse de Parme ( 1839). He also wrote Racine et Shakespeare ( 1823), criticism, and Histoire de la Peinture en Italie.

Stendhal, who participated in several campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars and thought of both Byron and Napoleon as his heroes, disliked France and lived for a number of years in Italy. His books were not widely read during his lifetime, but later in the 19th century he was hailed as a precursor of Balzac in his studies of the strong-willed, self-made man, and he influenced Bourget, Taine, and Zola, among others. Cf. Stendhal, by Matthew Josephson ( 1946).