[D66] René (novella)

[R.O.]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_(novella)
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_(roman)

René (novella)
 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

René tells his story to Chactas and Father Souel
Author		François-René de Chateaubriand
Country		France
Language	French
Genre		Romanticism, novella
Publication date
		1802
Media type	print (hardback & paperback)

René is a short novella by François-René de Chateaubriand, which first 
appeared in 1802. The work had an immense impact on early Romanticism, 
comparable to that of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. Like the 
German novel, it deals with a sensitive and passionate young man who 
finds himself at odds with contemporary society. René was first 
published as part of Chateaubriand's Génie du christianisme along with 
another novella; Atala, although it was in fact an excerpt from a long 
prose epic the author had composed between 1793 and 1799 called Les 
Natchez, which would not be made public until 1826. René enjoyed such 
immediate popularity that it was republished separately in 1805 along 
modern world had no beauty."


[...]

  He returns to France and finds society corrupt and irreligious. His 
sister Amélie inexplicably seems to avoid him too. As René explains:

     "I soon found myself more isolated in my own land, than I had been 
in a foreign country. For a while I wanted to fling myself into a world 
which said nothing to me and which did not understand me. My soul, not 
yet worn out by any passion, sought an object to which it might be 
attached; but I realised I was giving more than I received. It was not 
elevated language or deep feelings that were asked of me. My only task 
was to shrink my soul and bring it down to society's level."

Disgusted, René withdraws from society and lives in an obscure part of 
the city. But this reclusive life soon bores him too. He decides to move 
to the countryside but he finds no happiness there: "Alas, I was alone, 
alone on the earth. A secret languor was taking hold of my body. The 
disgust for life I had felt since childhood came back with renewed 
force. Soon my heart no longer provided food for my mind, and the only 
thing I felt in my existence was a deep ennui."