Jean Richepin
Jean Richepin was a French playwright and novelist born in 1849 in Médéa, Algeria. He is known for his bohemian lifestyle and for promoting a myth of Gypsy heritage, which contributed to his adventurous public persona. Richepin gained fame with his novel "La Chanson des gueux" in 1876, which led to a brief imprisonment due to its controversial content. This event marked him as a symbol of free thought among young writers in France, inspiring them to name a journal after him, "Le Gueux." His prolific career included many successful plays, notably "Le Flibustier" and "Le Chemineau," the latter of which faced initial rejection but later enjoyed significant acclaim. Richepin's life was marked by personal relationships that influenced his work, especially his affair with the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt. Despite experiencing both triumphs and setbacks in his career, Richepin's contributions to French theater and literature were substantial, and he remained active until his death in 1926.
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Subject Terms
Jean Richepin
Poet
- Born: February 14, 1849
- Birthplace: Médéa, Algeria
- Died: December 12, 1926
Biography
Jean Richepin was born in 1849 in Médéa, Algeria, the son of Jules Auguste Richepin and Rose Pauline Beschepoix Richepin. Although French, Richepin promoted the myth that he was of Gypsy origins, which helped to sustain the swashbuckling image he tried to promote. Handsome, intelligent, and gifted, Richepin was twenty-four when his collaboration with André Gill, L’Etoile, was staged by the Théâtre de la Tour d’Auvergne in 1873.
Richepin spent his early years in Algeria and France. At sixteen, he was graduated from the Lycée Charlemagne. He continued his education at the Ecole Normale, studying Latin and Spanish for two years. Following a brief stint as a journalist, he haunted the bistros of Montmartre in Paris, where he drifted into the nonconformist life of the avant-garde. He lived at the subsistence level, earning just enough from tutoring and selling essays to the many reviews then published in Paris.
In 1876, with the publication of his novel La Chanson des gueux, Richepin was catapulted into national prominence. He was also arrested and sentenced to a month imprisonment for having offended the public morals with this book. He took advantage of this month of confinement to write a collection of short stories published soon after his release. Young French writers revered Richepin, whose imprisonment they viewed as a monument to the injustice of suppressing free thought and expression. In 1891, a group of iconoclastic young Parisian writers named their journal Le Gueux in Richepin’s honor.
As his fame grew, Richepin traveled extensively, sailing on a merchant ship and, according to his reports, joining a group of Gypsies, apparently in an attempt to solidify the myth of his own Gypsy origins. In 1879, Richepin married pianist Eugénie Constant, but matrimony could not tame him. In 1883, during the rehearsals of his play La Glu, he embarked on an extended extramarital affair with its star, Sarah Bernhardt, who subsequently acted in several more of his dramas.
Over the next two decades, Richepin’s plays enjoyed immense popularity. Le Flibustier opened to a wildly enthusiastic popular and critical reception in 1888. The play was so successful that it continued to be a part of the repertory of the Théâtre-Français until 1934. Ironically, Richepin’s best play, Le Chemineau, first staged in 1897, was rejected by the Comédie-Français when Richepin submitted it. The play opened at the Odéon and ran for 158 well-attended performances in its first year. Successful revivals followed in 1900 and 1908, and in 1929, the Théâtre-Français revived it again.
Richepin’s career exemplifies the successes and failures that playwrights encounter. His Par le glaive was a smash hit when it was performed in 1892, but two years later, his Vers la joie!, staged by the Théâtre- Français, sustained only fifteen performances. Richepin’s last drama, Le Tango, was a collaboration with his wife. After it opened at the Athénée in 1913, the critics pointed out that the play was dated and out of touch with the contemporary Parisian art world. Richepin died on December 12, 1926.