Manon Lescaut

''The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut'' ( ) is a novel by Antoine François Prévost. It tells a tragic love story about a nobleman (known only as the Chevalier des Grieux) and a common woman (Manon Lescaut). Their decision to live together without marriage is the start of a moral decline that also leads to gambling, fraud, theft, murder, and Manon's death as a deportee in New Orleans. The novel is regarded as a classic, and is the most reprinted novel in French literature, with over 250 editions.

The story was first published in 1731 as the final volume of Prévost's serial novel '' Memoirs and Adventures of a Man of Quality'' (). In 1733, all copies for sale in Paris were seized due to the volume's morally questionable content. This effective ban contributed to an increase in popularity, prompting unauthorized reprints. In 1753, Prévost published ''Manon Lescaut'' as a revised standalone book, which is now the most commonly reprinted version.

The novel was unusual for depicting Paris's " low life" and for discussing the lovers' money problems in numerical detail: both choices contribute to its realism and its aura of scandal. Over the centuries, audiences have judged Manon differently. Eighteenth-century audiences saw her as an unworthy figure who inspired pity due to the sincerity of her love. Nineteenth-century responses saw her as a nearly mythological sex symbol, either a ''femme fatale'' who corrupts des Grieux or a hooker with a heart of gold. Today, scholars tend to see Manon as a victim of broader social forces, who is misrepresented by des Grieux's narration of her experience.

''Manon Lescaut'' has had dozens of adaptations into plays, ballets, operas, and films. The most renowned stage adaptations are three operas: Daniel Auber's '' Manon Lescaut'' (1856), Jules Massenet's ''Manon'' (1884), and Giacomo Puccini's '' Manon Lescaut'' (1893). ''Manon Lescaut'' also heavily inspired Giuseppe Verdi's opera '' La traviata'' (1853), through its influence on the play and novel ''La Dame aux Camélias'' by Alexandre Dumas ''fils''. Notable film adaptations include the Hollywood silent film '' When a Man Loves'' (1927) and '' Manon 70'' (1968), starring Catherine Deneuve as Manon.

Plot summary

The seventeen-year-old Chevalier des Grieux, a seminary student and the younger son of a noble family, falls in love at first sight with Manon, a common woman on her way to a convent. They immediately run away together, and spend their meagre savings living pleasurably in Paris. Manon has sex with a Monsieur de B—— for money; des Grieux forgives her. M. de B—— alerts des Grieux's family to his location, and des Grieux is forcibly brought home and confined to his room. Eventually, he enters St. Sulpice seminary with his friend Tiberge and spends a year as a successful student.

Manon reappears, and des Grieux abandons his plans to become a priest. Using wealth that Manon stole from Monsieur de B——, they move to Chaillot. Their house burns down, and des Grieux begins to cheat gamblers for money. Their servants rob them, and Manon agrees to become the mistress of a Monsieur G—— M——. After accepting substantial gifts, she leaves his house while he awaits her in his bedroom. He has Manon and Des Grieux arrested. Des Grieux is sent to St. Lazare (a religious institution for genteel moral correction), and Manon to La Salpêtrière (a harsh prison for "fallen women"). Des Grieux breaks out of his confinement, accidentally killing a porter during his escape, then bribes guards to smuggle Manon out of hers.

They return to Chaillot. Des Grieux borrows money from Tiberge. Manon rejects the advances of an Italian prince. They meet a young G—— M——, son of the G—— M—— whom they had earlier deceived, and decide to defraud him the same way. Manon receives his money and jewels; des Grieux hires thugs to detain him for a night; the couple eat his dinner and are about to sleep in his bed when his father arrives and has them arrested. They are imprisoned in the ; des Grieux is freed by his father's influence, and Manon is deported to New Orleans as a correction girl.

Des Griex accompanies Manon to America, pretending they are married. After some time living in idyllic peace, des Griex asks the Governor, Étienne Perier, to officially wed him to Manon. The Governor instead decides to give Manon to his nephew, Synnelet. Des Grieux duels Synnelet and knocks him unconscious; thinking he has killed the man, the couple flee into the wilderness. Manon dies of exposure and des Grieux buries her, digging her grave with his broken sword. Heartbroken, he is taken back to France by Tiberge.

Composition and publication

Antoine François Prévost was a French priest and author. In the 1710s he moved multiple times between a career in the military and a novitiate in the Jesuit priesthood. He joined the Benedictines of St Maur after an unhappy love affair, which has sometimes contributed to speculation that ''Manon Lescaut'' has autobiographical inspirations. In 1728 he left his abbey without permission, and his superiors gained a ''lettre de cachet'' for his arrest. He fled to England, where he published the first four volumes of his successful serial novel '' Memoirs and Adventures of a Man of Quality, Who Withdrew from the World'' ().

In 1730, he moved to the Netherlands and signed a contract with the Compagnie des Libraires d'Amsterdam for three more volumes of ''Memoirs and Adventures''. Prévost likely composed ''Manon Lescaut'' in March and April 1731. At the time, he was in Amsterdam, and was writing quickly to satisfy his contract. The story was first published in May 1731, as volume VII of Memoirs and Adventures, alongside volumes V and VI. Beginning in 1733, the Compagnie des Libraires d'Amsterdam also published volume VII on its own, as it proved more popular than the rest of the series.

In 1753, Prévost published a substantially revised edition of volume VII as a standalone publication. The standalone volume was titled ''The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and of Manon Lescaut'' (), which was the subtitle of volume VII of ''Memoirs and Adventures''. This edition claimed on its title page to be published in Amsterdam by the Compagnie des Libraires, but was actually published in Paris by François Didot. In this edition, Prévost modified some of his most sensationalist language, added a new scene where Manon resists the seduction of an Italian prince, and rewrote the ending to replace des Grieux's religious conversion with a more secular morality. The 1753 edition also added nine illustrations, including an allegorical vignette on the first page in which an old man guides a young one toward a crucifix and away from a woman surrounded by flowers and cupids. The illustrations introduced in the 1758 edition made the book into more of a "luxury object", and also made it more challenging to pirate.

Style

The narrative of ''Manon Lescaut'' is set apart from the main events of ''Memoirs and Adventures'' with both a preface and a preamble. The preface, titled "Note from the author" (), explains that the story was too large to include within the main narrative. It also says the story will be a morally-instructive example for readers, who will learn not to imitate des Grieux. The preamble is narrated by the unnamed "man of quality" () who is the protagonist of the main novel. He witnesses a group of prostitutes being deported. Curious about a particularly beautiful one (Manon), he speaks with the lover travelling with her (des Grieux). Two years later, he encounters des Grieux again, and asks to hear the full story of his experience in America.

The story is thus narrated retroactively as a long speech, delivered by des Grieux nine months after Manon's death. As such, it is an early example of the French genre of the confessional ''récit''''.'' All events are recounted in the first person, and shaped by des Grieux's retrospective self-justifications. The primary verb tense is ''passé simple'', a past-tense form that is only used in formal written French. The novel does not use quotation marks, even when des Grieux relates what other characters have said. This blurs the boundaries between characters' speech and free indirect speech. Des Grieux's telling frequently interrupts the narrative with apostrophes to absent figures and expressions of intense emotion. When he describes Manon, he often stutters or struggles to find words. Prévost was praised for this informal and expressive style, which invited sympathetic emotion: according to the literary historian Sylviane Albertan-Coppola, " e words flow as the heart overflows; the flow of feelings goes hand in hand with the flow of writing" ().

Major themes

Tragic love

The story is particularly remembered for its tragic lovers, with des Grieux and Manon being compared to Romeo and Juliet and Tristan and Iseult. The scholar Jean Sgard argues that all of Prévost's writing, including ''Manon Lescaut'', is ultimately about "the impossibility of happiness, the pervasiveness of evil and the misfortune attaching to the passions", all of which lead to "mourning without end". Although the book depicts its protagonists as suffering due to their poverty, it is not a populist novel that advocates for social reform. Instead, the novel responds to their struggles with sadness and resignation. It is an early example of the emerging sentimental novel, in which love can justify anything, and important moral value is placed on strong emotion.

Scandalizing immorality

On the novel's first publication, the characters and their choices were seen as shockingly immoral. Des Grieux's rejection of the priesthood in favor of a sexual relationship without marriage, and his crimes of fraud and murder, challenged readers' expectations of acceptable actions for the hero of a novel. Manon's willingness to have sex for money, and her general taste for pleasure and luxury, also seemed irreconcilable with her narrative role as a sympathetic love object. Both were sometimes seen as corrupted characters, and the novel's realistic depiction of Paris's " low life" was unusual and potentially threatening. Although the preface claims to disavow the characters' misbehavior, this is usually seen as an insincere pretense. The scandal was intensified by the historical setting of the novel: the story is set between 1717 and 1715, so it takes place during the final years of Louis XIV's conservative and orderly reign, rather than during the regency of King Louis XV when stories of corruption would be less surprising.

Social rank and money

The novel is unusual in the French tradition for its detailed depiction of lower-class locations and activities, especially the criminal world. Manon is considered "the first commoner heroine in French fiction", and the gulf in social rank between her and the noble des Grieux is an obstacle to their love. Des Grieux and Manon sometimes struggle to understand each other due to their different backgrounds. For example, Manon does not understand why des Grieux is surprised and upset after she acquires money from other lovers; her different background leads her to see these as practical affairs, which do not threaten her love for des Grieux. Their difference in rank is also apparent in the different punishments they receive for their transgressions. When both lovers are imprisoned for some of their crimes, des Grieux's aristocratic status shields him from the worst consequences while Manon ends up deported. Des Grieux often finds that even complete strangers will help him, if they share his aristocratic background. The novel thus highlights how justice is enforced unequally for different ranks of society.

A distinct, and even greater challenge is their lack of money. As an aristocrat, des Grieux is barred from ordinary employment; he could earn a professional income in the church, the military, or the law, but only if he still had his father's support. The literary scholar Haydn Mason describes the novel's setting as "a harsh and sordid world, motivated almost universally by money". ''Manon Lescaut'' is often highlighted as the first French novel to treat money as a major theme. Exact numbers are provided throughout the novel, an unusual choice that contributes to the novel's realism. Manon begins the novel with a dowry of 300 ''livres'', which is less than a tenth of an ordinary dowry for a woman entering a convent. The annual salary for a servant (Manon and de Grieux each keep one) was 100 ''livres'', while Manon and de Grieux consider a "respectable but simple" annual income to be 6,000 ''livres'' per year. The financial gap between the lovers and their servants is large, but the gap between them and their patrons is even larger: two of Manon's lovers offer her 20,000 and 30,000 ''livres'' as annual spending money.

The character of Manon

Since the novel's first publication, substantial critical analysis has focused on the interpretation of Manon's character. Because Manon's words and actions are always related through the filter of des Grieux's retrospective storytelling, readers can only speculate about her real thoughts, feelings, and intentions.

The earliest reviews in 1733 saw Manon as sympathetic but unexpectedly so, an unworthy "whore" () who was nonetheless appealing due to the sincerity of her love for des Grieux. She was both blamed and forgiven for des Grieux's corruption. The illustrations in the 1753 edition reinforced the image of Manon as someone to be loved, pitied, and forgiven for her mistakes. Eighteenth-century readers also saw Manon and des Grieux as helpless, fated to a tragic ending. The crimes of both were equally justified by their love and their financial need.

Manon's reputation began to change in the nineteenth century, as she became a near-mythological figure. Rather than being a simple, lighthearted girl of common birth, she was depicted as either a ''femme fatale'' who destroys des Grieux, or as a hooker with a heart of gold who is redeemed through her death. In 1832, Alfred de Musset's poem ''Namouna'' described Manon as "an astonishing sphinx, a true siren, a thrice feminine heart". Adaptations like the popular opera ''Manon'' (1884) characterized Manon as powerfully seductive. Alexandre Dumas ''fils'', whose novel ''The Lady of the Camellias'' (1848) was heavily inspired by ''Manon Lescaut'', wrote of Manon: "you are sensuality, you are instinct, you are pleasure, the eternal temptation of man". The literary historian Naomi Segal summarizes this period as one in which most critics "tend to view Manon as if she were a real woman and to heap upon her all the myths which operate within sexual politics in the non-fictional world".

Twentieth-century scholarly interpretations tend to see Manon as the victim, not of her own weakness, but of various social systems. For these readers, des Grieux's version of events is considered suspect, and it is important to imagine how Manon might have narrated her story differently. Feminist theorists like Nancy K. Miller and Segal see Manon as a narrative victim of patriarchy. Cultural-historical theorists see the novel as a conflict between aristocratic and bourgeois ideologies; Manon is marginalized by her class, but makes savvy decisions to strategically ensure her survival. Outside of academia, modern readers sometimes find Manon underdeveloped as a character. Twenty-first century adaptations reinforced a sociological interpretation of Manon's character. Several adaptations translate the story to more recent time periods in French history, in which Manon is always a non-conformist who boldly pursues love despite disadvantaged circumstances.

Reception

''Manon Lescaut'' gained popularity gradually. When first published in 1731 as part of ''Memoirs and Adventures'', it was not discussed separately from the rest of the novel. Over the next few years, it was increasingly seen as a highlight of that novel. Reviewers universally praised the novel, especially for its success inducing tears. ''Memoirs and Adventures'' sold well in Holland and England on its first release, and a 1732 German translation was also successful, but it was largely ignored in France until 1733.In July 1733, the release of standalone edition of ''Manon Lescaut'' prompted a review in the clandestine ''Journal de la Cour et de Paris'', which brought it to the attention of many new readers, including the famous author Voltaire. On October 5, the French censors (who needed to approve all new publications) seized the copies currently for sale due to the book's morally questionable content. This effective ban led to a sudden increase in popularity. As part of this new popularity, ''Manon Lescaut'' was printed separately from ''Memoirs and Adventures'' several times, including in unauthorized reprints. In 1753, Prévost responded with a high-quality revised edition of ''Manon Lescaut'' as a self-contained novel. Both ''Memoirs and Adventures'' and the standalone ''Manon Lescaut'' were reprinted frequently, with twenty editions of the first and eight of the latter appearing between 1731 and Prévost's death in 1763.

Interest in the novel waned at the start of the nineteenth century, followed by another dramatic increase in popularity in 1830, when it was adapted as a ballet. Many further adaptations followed, with new reprints of ''Manon Lescaut'' each year. In the late nineteenth century, editions were released with prefaces written by the famous French authors Alexandre Dumas ''fils'' in 1875 and Anatole France. It has become the most reprinted novel in French literature, with over 250 editions published between 1731 and 1981.

Adaptations

Stage adaptations

The first theatrical adaptation of ''Manon Lescaut'' was in 1772. This was a comedy titled ''The Virtuous Courtesan'' (), which ends with Manon surviving. It attempted to mix a sensitive and emotional portrayal of the lovers with some humour, but reviewers found it far inferior to the novel. There were a few dramas in the eighteenth century and the Romantic period, followed by a larger number in the early twentieth century. Relatively few of the early theatrical adaptations of ''Manon Lescaut'' have survived. Although ballets and operas of ''Manon Lescaut'' became popular, only three theatrical dramas had even a modest success: ''The Virtuous Courtesan'' (1772), ''Manon Lescaut et le chevalier Desgrieux'' (1820), and ''Manon Lescaut'' (1851). All three include some incidental music, and the 1820 melodrama is also accompanied by a ballet. These adaptations dramatize the narrative in similar ways. Key scenes that they consistently include are the reconciliation at Saint-Sulpice, the scene with the Italian prince, and des Grieux's desperate burial of Manon in Louisiana.

The first operatic adaptation, in 1836, was not a success. The literary historian Jean Sgard argues that operatic adaptations came late in the legacy of the novel because the story's mixture of genres was incompatible with the eighteenth century's dominant genre of serious opera characterized by Handel and Rameau. An important change in operatic precedent came after Giuseppe Verdi's highly successful 1853 opera, '' La traviata'' ("The Fallen Woman"). ''La traviata'' is based on the play and novel ''The Lady of the Camellias'' () by Alexandre Dumas ''fils'', which are themselves heavily inspired by ''Manon Lescaut''. After 1853, six operas based on ''Manon Lescaut'' were written. These operas varied widely in how they adapted the story: it was divided into differing numbers of sections (from three to seven acts), and adaptations existed in the different operatic genres of comic opera, opera, and lyric drama. The most renowned adaptations of ''Manon Lescaut'' are the operas by Daniel Auber (1856), Jules Massenet (1884), and Giacomo Puccini (1893).

In the theatrical and operatic adaptations, Manon's three lovers are combined into just one. Theatrical adaptations simplify the plot to one instance of infidelity, a reconciliation, and then the final tragedy, and operatic adaptations forgo the novel's long decline to dramatically juxtapose young love and tragic death. The literary scholar Jean Sgard argues that, by reducing the complexity of the narrative, the theatrical adaptations present the lovers as being disproportionately punished for a single mistake, rather than capturing the novel's feeling of a gradual descent into immorality. He further argues that operatic adaptations are forced to focus on a one-note characterization of Manon, and each opera's evaluation of her moral character is expressed in its depiction of her death.

List of dramas, operas and ballets

* ''The Virtuous Courtesan'' () (1772), a theatrical comedy by Brenner à C. Ribié
* ''Manon Lescaut et le chevalier Desgrieux'' (1820), a melodrama by Étienne Gosse
* ''Manon Lescaut'' (1830), a ballet by Jean-Louis Aumer
* ''Manon Lescaut, or the Maid of Artois'' (1836), an opera by the Irish composer Michael-William Balfe
* ''Manon Lescaut'' (1846), a ballet by Giovanni Casati
* ''Manon Lescaut'' (1851), a drama by Théodore Barrière and Marc Fournier
* ''Manon Lescaut'' (1852), a ballet by Giovanni Colinelli
* '' Manon Lescaut'' (1856), an opera by French composer Daniel Auber
* ''Manon'' (1884), an opera by French composer Jules Massenet
* ''Manon Lescaut, or the Castle of Lorme'' () (1887), an opera by Richard Kleinmichel
* '' Manon Lescaut'' (1893), an opera by the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini
* ''Manon Lescaut'' (1940), a drama in verse by Czech poet Vítězslav Nezval
* ''Boulevard Solitude'' (1952), an opera by German composer Hans Werner Henze
* ''Manon'' (1974), a ballet with music by Jules Massenet and choreography by Kenneth MacMillan
* ''Manon'' (2015), a musical written for the Takarazuka troupe by librettist/director Keiko Ueda and composer Joy Son

Film adaptations

''Manon Lescaut'' was adapted several times after the invention of film. These include a series of silent films, the most prominent of which is the 1927 Hollywood adaptation titled '' When a Man Loves''. Early adaptations were period films, set in the early eighteenth century; later film adaptations translate the novel's story to a contemporary setting. The 1949 film ''Manon'' by Henri-Georges Clouzot depicts des Grieux as a member of the French Resistance and Manon as a Nazi collaborator; he and Manon enter the black market and eventually stowaway to Palestine with a group of Jewish refugees. In '' Manon 70'' by Jean Aurel, released in 1968 and set in the near-future of 1970, des Grieux is a globetrotting radio journalist who tags along with Manon's sugar baby lifestyle; instead of ending with Manon's tragic death, this film concludes with both Manon and des Grieux hitchhiking. A pair of television miniseries directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade in 2014 and 2017 presents Manon as a contemporary young woman in a youth detention center who is failed by social systems and lives precariously.

List of films

* ''Manon Lescaut'' (1908), Italian silent film directed by Carlo Rossi
* '' Manon Lescaut'' (1914), American silent film directed by H.H. Winslow
* '' Manon Lescaut'' (1926), German silent film directed by Arthur Robison, with Lya de Putti and Marlene Dietrich
* '' When a Man Loves'' (1927), American silent film directed by Alan Crosland, with John Barrymore and Dolores Costello
* '' Manon Lescaut'' (1940), Italian, directed by Carmine Gallone, with Vittorio de Sica and Alida Valli
* ''Manon'' (1949), French, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, with Michel Auclair and Cécile Aubry
* '' The Lovers of Manon Lescaut'' (1954), French, directed by Mario Costa
* '' Manon 70'' (1968), French, directed by Jean Aurel, with Catherine Deneuve and Sami Frey
* ''Manon'' (1981), Japanese, directed by Yōichi Higashi
* ''Manón'' (1986), Venezuelan, directed by Román Chalbaud, with Mayra Alejandra
* ''Manon Lescaut'' (2013), French television film, directed by Gabriel Aghion, with Céline Perreau and Samuel Theis
* ''3 x Manon'' (2014) and ''Manon, 20 years old'' () (2017), French television miniseries by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade

Translations

The 1753 version of the novel is more common in modern editions. English translations of the original 1731 version of the novel include Helen Waddell's 1931 translation with a foreword by George Saintsbury. For the 1753 revision there are English translations by, among others, L. W. Tancock (Penguin, 1949—which divides the 2-part novel into a number of chapters), Donald M. Frame (Signet, 1961—which notes differences between the 1731 and 1753 editions), Angela Scholar (Oxford, 2004—with extensive notes and commentary), and Andrew Brown (Hesperus, 2004—with a foreword by Germaine Greer).

Henri Valienne (1854–1908), a physician and author of the first novel in the constructed language Esperanto, translated ''Manon Lescaut'' into that language. His translation was published in Paris in 1908, and reissued by the British Esperanto Association in 1926.

Illustrations

Several illustrated editions of ''Manon Lescaut'' have been produced, though it attracted substantially fewer illustrations than other bestsellers of the period like Voltaire's 1759 novella ''Candide.'' A 1963 catalogue identified 63 editions with original or notable illustrations, produced globally. New illustrated editions were produced most decades from 1780 to 1980. The novel also inspired a range of standalone visual interpretations (i.e., prints and paintings), though again fewer than similar eighteenth-century bestsellers; the visual iconography of '' Paul et Virginie'' (1788), for example, more firmly entered popular culture.

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

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Further reading

* René Démoris, ''Le Silence de Manon'', Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1995 .
* Patrick Brady, ''Structuralist perspectives in criticism of fiction : essays on Manon Lescaut and La Vie de Marianne'', P. Lang, Berne ; Las Vegas, 1978.
* Maurice Daumas, ''Le Syndrome des Grieux : la relation père/fils au XVIIIe siècle'', Paris: Seuil, 1990 .
* R. A. Francis, ''The abbé Prévost's first-person narrators'', Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1993.
* Eugène Lasserre, ''Manon Lescaut de l'abbé Prévost'', Paris: Société Française d'Éditions Littéraires et Techniques, 1930.
* Paul Hazard, ''Études critiques sur Manon Lescaut'', Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1929.
* Pierre Heinrich, ''L'Abbé Prévost et la Louisiane ; étude sur la valeur historique de Manon Lescaut'' Paris: E. Guilmoto, 1907.
* Jean Luc Jaccard, ''Manon Lescaut, le personnage-romancier'', Paris: A.-G. Nizet, 1975 .
* Eugène Lasserre, ''Manon Lescaut de l'abbé Prévost'', Paris: Société française d'Éditions littéraires et techniques, 1930.
* Vivienne Mylne, ''Prévost : Manon Lescaut'', London: Edward Arnold, 1972.
* René Picard, ''Introduction à l'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut'', Paris: Garnier, 1965, pp. cxxx–cxxxxvii.
* Alan Singerman, ''L'Abbé Prévost : L'amour et la morale'', Geneva: Droz, 1987.
* Jean Sgard, ''L'Abbé Prévost : labyrinthes de la mémoire'', Paris: PUF, 1986 .
* Jean Sgard, ''Prévost romancier'', Paris: José Corti, 1968 .

External links

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''Manon Lescaut''
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