Manon Lescaut

First page of the redacted 1753 edition of Manon Lescaut.

Manon Lescaut (L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut) is a short novel by French author Antoine François Prévost (the Abbé Prévost). Published in 1731, it is the seventh and final volume of Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité (Memoirs and Adventures of a Man of Quality). It was controversial in its time and was banned in France upon publication. Despite this it became very popular and pirated editions were widely distributed. In a subsequent 1753 edition, the Abbé Prévost toned down some scandalous details and injected more moralizing disclaimers.

Plot summary

Set in France and Louisiana in the early 18th century, the story follows the hero le Chevalier Des Grieux and his lover Manon Lescaut. Des Grieux comes from a noble and landed family, but forfeits his hereditary wealth and incurs the disappointment of his father by running away with Manon. In Paris, the young lovers enjoy a blissful cohabitation, while Des Grieux struggles to satisfy Manon's taste for luxury. He scrounges together money by borrowing from his unwaveringly loyal friend Tiberge and from cheating gamblers. On several occasions, Des Grieux's wealth evaporates (by theft, in a house fire, etc.), prompting Manon to leave him for a richer man because she cannot stand the thought of living in penury.

The two lovers finally settle down in New Orleans, where the virtual absence of class differences allows them to live in idyllic peace for a while. But when Des Grieux reveals their unmarried state to the Governor and asks to be wed with Manon, the Governor's nephew sets his sights on winning Manon's hand. In despair, Des Grieux challenges the Governor's nephew to a duel and knocks him unconscious. Thinking he had killed the man and fearing retribution, the couple flee New Orleans and venture into the wilderness of Louisiana, hoping to reach a neighboring English settlement. Manon dies of exposure and exhaustion the following morning, and Des Grieux returns to France to become a cleric after burying his beloved.

Operas and Ballets

The story has influenced a number of ballets and operas, such as Manon Lescaut (1856) by French composer Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, Manon (1884) by French composer Jules Massenet, Manon Lescaut (1893) by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, Boulevard Solitude by German composer Hans Werner Henze, the ballet L'histoire de Manon, and Manon Lescaut (1940) by Czech poet and playwright Vítězslav Nezval.

Works which cite Manon Lescaut

In the novel La Dame aux Camelias (Lady of the Camelias) by Alexandre Dumas, fils, Manon Lescaut is an all-important model and point of comparison for Marguerite's life, loves and death and is extensively discussed. In the opening pages, the narrator encounters a copy of Manon Lescaut in the auction of Marguerite Gautier's estate, and buys it. The narrator reflects that while Marguerite died in a "sumptuous bed" and Manon died in the desert, in her lovers arms, Marguerite's death was nevertheless worse, for she died "in that desert of the heart, a more barren, a vaster, a more pitiless desert than that in which Manon had found her last resting-place." The narrator learns this copy of Manon Lescaut was a gift from Armand to Marguerite. Armand tells him that Marguerite read the story of Manon Lescaut "over and over again" making notes in the margins, and she "always declared that when a woman loves, she can not do as Manon did." (But of course, she does, because she must, hence the tragedy).

In Act I of Alexandre Dumas, fils's play The Lady of the Camellias, the characters attend a performance of the ballet Manon Lescaut.

In chapter 4 of Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian leafs through a copy of Manon Lescaut while waiting for Lord Henry.

In Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's Venus im Pelz (Venus in Furs), the masochistic hero Severin refers approvingly to the Chevalier's love for Manon even after she has left him for another man.

In the mystery novel Clouds of Witness by Dorothy Sayers, Lord Peter Wimsey solves the case by reference to Manon Lescaut.

Manon Lescaut is mentioned in a novel written by an important Romanian writer, Mihail Drumes.

In the novel, entitled Invitatie la vals, referring to Carl Maria von Weber's "Invitation to the Dance" (later orchestrated by Berlioz), a comparison is made between the novel's main character and Manon Lescaut.

The novel is mentioned at the very end of Michel Foucault's Life of infamous men.

Thomas Pynchon refers to Des Grieux a number of times in his early short-story "Under the Rose," found in his Slow Learner collection.

North Gladiola , a 1985 novel by James Wilcox, opens with a reference to Manon Lescaut, and mentions the character again later in the text.

Films

Some films and TV series have been based on the novel. The most prominent are:

• When a Man Loves (1927), directed by Alan Crosland, with John Barrymore and Dolores Costello
• Lady of the Tropics (1939), directed by Jack Conway, with Hedy Lamarr and Robert Taylor
• Manon Lescaut (1940), directed by Carmine Gallone, with Vittorio de Sica and Alida Valli
• Manon (1949), directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, with Michel Auclair and Cécile Aubry.

Manon is also referenced in the films Manon des Sources (1953 by Marcel Pagnol and 1986 by Claude Berri) and Jean de Florette (entitled Ugolin in 1953 by Marcel Pagnol and 1986 by Claude Berri). Pagnol's 1962-1964 novels were derived from his movie. Beyond the name of the heroine, her grandmother was referenced as having sung Manon.

Popular music

Yoshimi Iwasaki's (岩崎良美) 1980 hit song Anata iro no Manon (あなた色のマノン) is about Manon Lescaut.

References

• "Prévost (d’Exiles, Antoine François), Abbé" (2004 ed.). 2003. 
• "Prévost d'Exiles, Antoine-François, Abbé" (2005 ed.). 2005. 
• Brewer, E. Cobham (1898), written at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Henry Altemus Company, <http://www.bartleby.com/81/10957.html>
• Kunitz, Stanley J. & Colby, Vineta (1967). François Prévost, Antoine in European Authors 1000-1900, pp. 743-4. H.W. Wilson Company, New York.
• Sayers, Dorothy L., Clouds of Witness, 1926.

Bibliography

• (French) Sylviane Albertan-Coppola, Abbé Prévost : Manon Lescaut, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1995 ISBN 9782130467045.
• (French) André Billy, L’Abbé Prévost, Paris: Flammarion, 1969.
• (French) René Démoris, Le Silence de Manon, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1995 ISBN 9782130468264.
• Patrick Brady, Structuralist perspectives in criticism of fiction : essays on Manon Lescaut and La Vie de Marianne, P. Lang, Berne ; Las Vegas, 1978.
• Patrick Coleman, Reparative realism : mourning and modernity in the French novel, 1730-1830, Geneva: Droz, 1998 ISBN 9782600002868.
• (French) Maurice Daumas, Le Syndrome des Grieux : la relation père/fils au XVIIIe siècle, Paris: Seuil, 1990 ISBN 9782020113977.
• R. A. Francis, The abbé Prévost’s first-person narrators, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1993.
• (French) Eugène Lasserre, Manon Lescaut de l’abbé Prévost, Paris: Société Française d’Éditions Littéraires et Techniques, 1930.
• (French) Paul Hazard, Études critiques sur Manon Lescaut, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1929.
• (French) Pierre Heinrich, L’Abbé Prévost et la Louisiane ; étude sur la valeur historique de Manon Lescaut Paris: E. Guilmoto, 1907.
• (French) Claudine Hunting, La Femme devant le “tribunal masculin” dans trois romans des Lumières : Challe, Prévost, Cazotte, New York: P. Lang, 1987 ISBN 9780820403618.
• (French) Jean Luc Jaccard, Manon Lescaut, le personnage-romancier, Paris: A.-G. Nizet, 1975 ISBN 2707804509.
• (French) Eugène Lasserre, Manon Lescaut de l’abbé Prévost, Paris: Société française d'Éditions littéraires et techniques, 1930.
• (French) Roger Laufer, Style rococo, style des Lumières, Paris: J. Corti, 1963.
• (French) Vivienne Mylne, Prévost : Manon Lescaut, London: Edward Arnold, 1972.
• (French) René Picard, Introduction à l’Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, Paris: Garnier, 1965, p. CXXX-CXXXXVII.
• Naomi Segal, The Unintended Reader : feminism and Manon Lescaut, Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986 ISBN 9780521307239.
• (French) Alan Singerman, L’Abbé Prévost : L’amour et la morale, Geneva: Droz, 1987.
• (French) Jean Sgard, L’Abbé Prévost : labyrinthes de la mémoire, Paris: PUF, 1986 ISBN 2130392822.
• (French) Jean Sgard, Prévost romancier, Paris: José Corti, 1968 ISBN 2714303153.
• (French) Loïc Thommeret, La Mémoire créatrice. Essai sur l'écriture de soi au XVIIIe siècle, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2006, ISBN 9782296008267.
• Arnold L. Weinstein, Fictions of the self, 1550-1800, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981 ISBN 9780691064482.

External links

• Full texts at Project Gutenberg in the original French and in an English translation
• Manon Lescaut on World Wide School
• Images from an illustrated 1885 French edition
• (French) Manon Lescaut, audio version