Marc Elder , real name - Marcel Tandron ( fr. Marc Elder, Marcel Tendron October 31, 1884, Nantes, France - August 16, 1933, Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine, France) - French prose writer, art critic and laureate of the Goncourt Prize ( 1913) for the novel "The People of the Sea."
| Mark Elder | |
|---|---|
| fr. Marc elder | |
| Birth name | Marcel Tandron |
| Date of Birth | October 31, 1884 |
| Place of Birth | Nantes , France |
| Date of death | August 16, 1933 (aged 48) |
| A place of death | Saint Fiacre-sur-Maine , France |
| Citizenship |  France |
| Occupation | writer, art critic, critic |
| Years of creativity | 1906 - 1933 |
| Genre | story, novel, article |
| Language of Works | French |
| Awards | Goncourt Prize ( 1913 ) |
| Awards |  |
Content
- 1 Biography
- 2 Literary work
- 3 Awards
- 4 notes
- 5 Literature
Biography
Mark Elder is the literary pseudonym of Marcel Tandron, a native of Nantes . Born into a wealthy family (his mother was named Blanche, and as a girl - Rosier) and spent his childhood in La Bernerie en Rese. He studied at the Jesuit College of St. Francois Xavier in Bath , then ( 1890 - 1892 ) at the Lesser Nantes Lyceum. Roughly in 1901 - 1904 he graduated from the studio of rhetoric and philosophy in the Lyceum of Clemenceau. He was a critic and art critic by profession.
Due to poor health, Marcel regularly rested in Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine, in the estate of his mother's relatives. He began his literary work in 1906 , choosing the pseudonym Mark Elder . He also wrote articles for the magazines l'Action Nationale, La Vie, La Renaissance contemporaine, La Revue française, La Grande Revue [1] .
On October 9, 1907, Mark Elder was called up for military service in the 65th Nantes Infantry Regiment; on July 11, 1908 he was discharged.
January 26, 1911 married Germain Martha Malaval, from whom he later had a son, Yves. [2]
In 1913, Mark Elder received the Goncourt Prize . At the previous stages, the applicants for the award were, among others, also Leon Werth ( La maison blanche ), Henri Dagersch and Valerie Larbo . In the eleventh round of the voting “The People of the Sea”, Elder was preferred over the works of “Grand Grand Meaulnes” by Alain Fournier and “ Towards the Swan ” (Du côté de chez Swann) by Marcel Proust [3] .
When the First World War began , he was mobilized on August 3, 1914 , and on December 9, 1914 he was declared unfit for service due to pulmonary tuberculosis and was removed from the register. April 20, 1915 this decision was confirmed at the highest level [2] .
March 17, 1919, Mark Elder holds the post of librarian at the Nantes Municipal Theater. In May 1919, he leads the newly formed Society of Friends of the Museum of Fine Arts, a society intended to introduce works of contemporary art into the Nantes Museum.
On July 23, 1921, Mark Elder became the secretary of the city administration, responsible for the development of art and the preservation of cultural monuments. December 19, 1924 was appointed curator of the Castle of the Dukes of Breton . In this position he was until the very end. Throughout his life, the writer has compiled a collection of works of art, which after his death became the property of the Nantes Museum of Fine Art [4] .
On August 16, Marc Elder died in Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine. He was buried on August 18 at the Nantes cemetery "Mercy" (Miséricorde) [5] .
Literary work
Mark Elder made his debut in many respects with the autobiographical novel "Crisis", in which the main character is often sick and becomes an orphan in childhood. Four years later, he published Three Stories. In 1912, the novel Marta Rushar was released. Elder authored two essays about Octave Mirbo and Romain Rolland . Essays also include works written by contemporary artists - “In Giverny, by Claude Monet” (1924), “Gabrielle Belot, Enlightener Artist” (1927), “Louis-Robert Antral” (1927) and “Atelier Renoir” (1931).
Standing apart is the "Apostolic Life of Vincent Venjam" (1917). In the hero of this novel, you can recognize Vincent Van Gogh . The author considers the fate of the artist primarily from the point of view of the Christian.
In 1913, Marc Elder received the Goncourt Prize for the novel “The People of the Sea” ( Le Peuple de la mer ), which depicts the life of fishermen from the island of Noirmoutier . Compositionally, the work consists of three separate short stories - “Barka”, “Woman” and “Sea”. About this book, as well as about the creative manner of the author, the literary critic J. Tallando spoke as follows:
| It is felt that Mark Elder lived with the people he portrayed. He, so to speak, “practiced” with them, like artists who outline a sketch from nature with the free movement of a pencil and do not force the model to pose because they are afraid of distorting the sincerity of behavior and the flexibility of movements. He looked, watched and listened. Thanks to attention and insight, he managed to break through the sailors' smooth, cold and closed mask. Moreover, he caught their gestures, ambitions, rivalry and contention. He conveyed their feelings, recorded the most secret movements of the soul. And his observations are so perfect that it is not only a painted portrait. He painted characters. This is what gives strength and value to the beauty of his book [6] |
His novel “Jacques Bonhomme and Jean Le Blanc” (1919) was written on military subjects. The first of these two characters - an infantryman - returned from the front without a leg and was “crowned with military medals and a wooden leg”, and the second - a sailor - drowned along with the ship that sailed to Thessaloniki .
A feature of the creative manner of the writer is a certain conservatism and traditionalism. Literary critic Bill Marshall describes Mark Elder as an anti-communist, an enemy of democracy and retrograde [7] .
In the literary theme of Mark Elder, a great place is occupied by works on the sea. A connoisseur of this industry, Rene Monio, in section XXIII of his “History of Marinist Literature”, describing the development of this genre and its representatives at the beginning of the 20th century, pays tribute to Elder and mentions the name of his work - “The People of the Sea” [8] .
Awards and Prizes
In March 1924, Mark Elder, with the submission of the Minister of Culture, became a holder of the Legion of Honor .
When the writer died, flags were lowered at the Castle of the Dukes of Breton as a sign of mourning [2] .
An obituary was published in the Nantes newspaper L'Ouest Éclair on August 19, 1933 : “In the person of Marc Elder, one of our remarkable writers who is fluent in language is lost, one of those who, in any case, can better understand and portray Brittany and resurrect rich shipowners and corsairs eighteenth century. "
On May 11, 1934, a memorial plaque in honor of Mark Elder was installed on the wall of the Castle of the Dukes of Breton. November 30, 1936 the former "Castle Square" (place du Château), located in front of the entrance to this castle, was renamed Marc Elder Square. The name of the writer named the square in Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine, as well as the streets in Reza, La Bernerie en Rese, Bath and Brest.
Notes
- ↑ Monet, le cycle des Nymphéas: catalog sommaire: Musée national de l'Orangerie, 6 mai-2 août 1999
- ↑ 1 2 3 Archives municipales de Nantes - Municipal Archives of Nantes
- ↑ As the evening newspapers reported then, “... Mark Elder fell ill and recovered, learning from a telegram that he had been awarded a prize of eight thousand francs” (Jean Bastaire. Tentation de l'enfance , French & European Pubns, 1964-191 pp.)
- ↑ Site of art historian Emerick Rouillac
- ↑ Information about the burial place: XX plot, row No. 7, grave No. 9
- ↑ Excerpt from an article by J. Tallando, published in the journal Le Populaire de Nantes 5th Chest 1913
- ↑ The French Atlantic: travels in culture and history , Bill Marshall, 2009 , p. 43
- ↑ Histoire de la littérature maritime , René Moniot, Beaumont, 2008 - chap. XXIII Les écrivains du peuple de la mer , p. 362
Literature
- Archives municipales de Nantes - Municipal Archives of Nantes
- Marc Elder, ou, Un rêve écartelé , Roger Douillard ed., Cid éditions, 1987 - “Mark Elder, or The Dream, Heraldically Divided Four”, 143 pp.
- Histoire de la littérature maritime , René Moniot, Beaumont, 2008 - The History of Marinist Literature, 411 pp.
- The French Atlantic: travels in culture and history , Bill Marshall, 2009 - “The French Atlantic: Travels in Culture and History,” 375 pp.
- 1000 Bretons: dictionnaire biographique , Jean-Loup Avril. Les Portes du large, 2002 - “1000 Bretons: A Biographical Dictionary,” p. 451.