Марсель Швоб: Жизнь и творчество французского символиста.

French writer

Mayer André Marcel Schwob, known as Marcel Schwob (23 August 1867 – 26 February 1905), was a French symbolist writer best known for his short stories and his literary influence on authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Alfonso Reyes, Roberto Bolaño and Patricio Pron. He has been called a "precursor of Surrealism". In addition to over a hundred short stories, he wrote journalistic articles, essays, biographies, literary reviews and analysis, translations and plays. He was extremely well known and respected during his life and notably befriended a great number of intellectuals and artists of the time.

He was born in Chaville, Hauts de Seine on 23 August 1867 into a cultivated Jewish family. His father, George Schwob, was a friend of Théodore de Banville and Théophile Gautier. and continue his studies at the Lycée Louis le Grand, where he became friends with Léon Daudet and Paul Claudel. He then completed his military service in Vannes, joining the artillery. He failed his entrance exams for the École normale supérieure, and "Dialogues d'Utopie" (written in 1905), he never wrote any more original fiction. He did write articles, introductions and essays, adapted and translated several plays, and planned or began numerous projects that remained unfinished when he died.

Ting Tse Ying was a young Chinese scholar from Saint Louis, Senegal, fluent in English, whom Schwob had met at the Chinese pavilion at the closing of Paris's Exposition Universelle and hired as a domestic servant, personal assistant and travelling companion. Ting later worked for explorer Paul Pelliot, whom he accompanied to Turkestan. In 1901, assisted by Ting, he travelled first to Jersey, where he stayed for several weeks, and then to Uriage, trying to improve his health. He then began the biggest voyage of his life, traveling to Samoa, like his hero Stevenson, in search of his tomb. Leaving from Marseilles, he stopped in Port Said, Djibouti, Aden, toured Sri Lanka, Sydney and finally Vailima, where Stevenson had lived. There, he met people who had known Stevenson. He stayed for a little less than a month. He became very sick in the island, lost a lot of weight and was forced to return to Paris in a hurry without having visited the tomb. Because of regional racism, Ting was arrested on several occasions and prevented from accompanying Schwob in some parts of the trip. Schwob complained about this in his letters to Moreno. Schwob was also friends with Lucien Guitry and tried to help him reconcile with his son, Sacha Guitry. Decades later Sacha went on to make several films with Marguerite Moreno.

The two loves of his life were a young woman known as Louise and the celebrated actress Marguerite Moreno. Schwob met Louise, a working class girl who might have been a prostitute, in 1891, when he was 24 years old and she was 23. He kept the relationship hidden and exchanged letters with her, most of which he later destroyed. After two years she died of tuberculosis. and was the lover of Catulle Mendès. She had posed for sculptor Jean Dampt, artists Edmond Aman Jean, Joseph Granié and often for Lucien Lévy Dhurmer. In January 1895 they were officially together and they were married in London five years later, in 1900. Charles Whibley, the English writer, was a witness at the wedding. Their relationship was unconventional. They spent much time apart, due to Moreno's career and Schwob's frequent travels.

He became sick in 1896 with a chronic incurable intestinal disorder. He also suffered from recurring conditions that were generally diagnosed as influenza or pneumonia, and he received intestinal surgery several times. After two surgeries by doctor Joaquin Albarrán, Robert de Montesquiou recommended the care of the well known doctor and surgeon Samuel Jean de Pozzi, who had been lovers with Sarah Bernhardt and was later painted by John Singer Sargent. At first his treatments had some positive effects, relieving Schwob from his constant pain. In appreciation, Schwob dedicated La porte des rêves to him. But by 1900, after two more surgeries, Pozzi told him that he could not do anything else for him. In the following years he ate only kefir and fermented milk. In February 1905, after nine years of serious recurring episodes, he died at age 37, of pneumonia while his wife was away on tour, performing in Aix en Provence. He was surrounded by Ting, his brother Maurice and his biographer Pierre Champion. This apocryphal theory contradicts almost everything that is known about Schwob's health and sexual activities. His birth name, Mayer André Marcel Schwob, is clearly indicated on both his birth certificate and marriage license, both in the possession of the Harold B. Lee Library of Brigham Young University. Despite this well documented fact, several biographical texts erroneously continue to list his "real name" as "André Marcel Mayer" and "Marcel Schwob" as an alias.

Oratorio La Croisade des Enfants, Gabriel Pierné. This is the composer's best known piece. 1902.