Jocelyn (Lamartine)

Overview

Jocelyn (1836) is the verse novel by Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869), presented as the journal of a country priest. According to the LAN/RSR notes in the diary files, it tells of a seminarian who falls in love with Laurence, a girl disguised as a boy; their separation is one of the great tragic scenes of French Romanticism. The Wikisource text is a validated transcription of the Œuvres complètes (tome 4).

Marie and this work

21 June 1877 (072.0290): on the way to Paris, "depuis huit heures du matin jusqu'à Paris je suis restée couchée à lire 'Jocelyn' de Lamartine", something she says she could not do at home: "c'est beau, c'est tendre, c'est poétique, c'est doux et ce n'est jamais ridicule".

13 July 1877 (072.0511): she interrupts herself during a day of hotel-hunting to read a phrase and ends up reading three pages, at the place "où Jocelyn revoit Laurence": "j'ai toutes les idées retournées", a swirl of memories of Rome, the dark balcon, the rain and Antonelli.

Immediately afterwards (072.0512): "Non, écoutez, c'est mal de faire des Jocelyn ! M. de Lamartine s'en fichait peut-être, mais il y a des honnêtes gens à qui ce martyr raconté si divinement fait saigner le cœur". She turns the title into a common noun.

Identification note

Supersedes `people/mentioned/JOCELYN.md`, which is an auto-stub. No doubt about the identification.

References in Diary

Sources