Atala (novella)
"The Death of Atala" by Rodolfo Amoedo (1883)
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| Author | François-René de Chateaubriand |
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| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Genre | Romanticism, novella |
| Publisher | Migneret/Librairie Dupont |
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Publication date
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April 2, 1801 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Atala, ou Les Amours de deux sauvages dans le desert is an early novella by François-René de Chateaubriand, first published on 12 germinal IX (2 April 1801). The work, inspired by his travels in North America, had an immense impact on early Romanticism, and went through five editions in its first year. It was adapted frequently for stage, and translated into many languages.
Along with René, it began as a discarded fragment from a long prose epic the author had composed between 1793 and 1799, Les Natchez, which would not be made public until 1826. In 1802 both Atala and René were published as part of Chateaubriand's Génie du christianisme.
Contrasting the cruelty and warfare of the Indians with the saintliness of the missionary, it is intended as a condemnation of the philosophes' praise of the "noble savage"; the author insisted that the Natchez Indian Chactas was "more than half civilised", and positive values are considered more or less synonymous with Christianity and Europeanisation. Nevertheless the decision to portray at least two Indians sympathetically irked later generations of readers whose attitudes had been shaped by "scientific racism", and even today it is often assumed by casual readers (who do not read the prefaces) that Chateaubriand was a promulgator rather than a denouncer of the "noble savage" concept.
While the book's accuracy on the subject of the North American flora is a controversial matter, it seems to be agreed that Chateaubriand never saw much of the southern territories he describes, and his descriptions are based on naturalists' books.
The story is told from the point of view of the 73-year-old hero, Chactas, whose story is preserved by an oral tradition among the Seminoles.
The frame story: A young disillusioned Frenchman, René, has joined an Indian tribe and married a woman named Céluta. On a hunting expedition, one moonlit night, René asks Chactas, the old man who adopted him, to relate the story of his life.
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