Honoré de Balzac
French novelist and playwright (1799–1850)
AI overview
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright from the 19th century who created detailed, realistic stories about French society and human nature. His works are considered foundational to modern literature because he pioneered the realistic novel form and explored the complexities of ambition, wealth, and social class in ways that influenced countless writers who came after him.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Person · Open Library
- Works
- 1
Top works
- The Fatal Skin ... Translated ... by Cedar Paul (Novel Library.)
via Open Library + Wikidata
Listeners · Last.fm
- Listeners
- 399
- Total plays
- 5,999
Honoré de Balzac (IPA: [ɔnɔʁe də balˈzak]) (May 20, 1799 – August 18, 1850) was a nineteenth-century French novelist and playwright. Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Honor%C3%A9+de+Balzac">Read more on Last.fm</a>
Works in European collections
36 objects attributed to Honoré de Balzac, held across European museums, libraries & archives · via Europeana
Article
Honoré de Balzac (/ˈbæl.zæk/ BAL-zak, more commonly US: /ˈbɔːl.-/ BAWL-; French: [ɔnɔʁe d(ə) balzak]; born Honoré Balzac; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence La Comédie humaine, described as a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as his magnum opus.
Owing to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multi-faceted characters; even his lesser characters are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well; the city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities. His writing influenced many famous writers, including the novelists Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James and Fyodor Dostoevsky, and filmmakers François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette. Many of Balzac's works have been made into films and continue to inspire other writers. James called him "really the father of us all."
Gallery (12)
Connections
Categories
1799 births1850 deaths19th-century French dramatists and playwrights19th-century French male writers19th-century French novelists19th-century French short story writers19th-century pseudonymous writersBurials at Père Lachaise CemeteryCommons link from WikidataFrench fantasy writersFrench historical novelistsFrench literary critics
