From Shadow to Spotlight: 150 Years of Colette
2023 marks the 150th year after the birth of French writer Colette. The anniversary celebrates a life that paved the way for vibrant ideas and exposed new perspectives in not only the literary world, but society on a francophone and global scale. It is time to pay tribute to Colette’s sheer tenacity for life despite hardship, and her ability to capture human experience through the written word.
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was born in 1873 in the sleepy village of Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, in rural Burgundy. Her mother Adèle Eugénie Sidonie (“Sido”), was to form a central figure in Colette’s life. Brought up in a bourgeois milieu, Sido was exposed to culture, which nurtured her curiosity and open-mindedness. Such were the qualities that Adèle passed on to her daughter, enabling Colette to have a taste for freedom. Colette’s mother also encouraged a respect and appreciation for nature, in all its beauty. As a carefree child, Colette imagined herself to be a “reine de la terre” (‘queen of the earth’), which certainly captures her connectedness to the natural world. Later, nature undoubtedly formed a principal source of inspiration for her writing.
Colette’s father, Jules-Joseph Colette was deemed a war hero after he lost a leg fighting in the Second Italian War of Independence. However, disaster struck once again, and Jules-Joseph’s poor financial management brought the Colette family tumbling into poverty. Nevertheless, this financial precarity was to become a turning point for Colette’s identity, whereby she was forced to become a financially independent woman. Yet, in 1893, she fell in love and married a man fifteen years her senior, Henri Gautheir-Villars (“Willy”). Unfortunately, the marriage was riddled with unhappiness, manipulation, and greed. Willy was an author who had writer’s block. He was quick to spot Colette’s flair for writing and exploited her, rendering her his ghost writer. Colette was hidden away, and often quite literally locked away by Willy, who forced her to write whole books for him. These books, such as the four “Claudine” novels, gained much popularity, but Willy had a firm grip on all royalties gained. Colette was left with nothing, except the oppressive shadow of her husband.
Breaking the Mould
Of course, Colette was not one to surrender, and after much struggle, persuaded Willy to state her name on her own work. Yet the result was a somewhat half-hearted joint name “Willy and Colette Willy” Not only did Willy take advantage of Colette’s talents, but also of her trust, when he had affairs. As a result, Colette became depressed, however not for long: her desire for the vibrancy of life prevailed, and she decided to use her social status as Willy’s wife to her advantage, mingling amongst some of the most influential people of the Belle Epoque such as Debussy and Proust. Colette’s marriage to Willy seemed to reflected a tension between her childhood and the freedoms of adulthood, whereby Willy treated her like a child, unwilling to treat her his equal. Eventually, in 1906, Colette left Willy, divorcing from himin 1910. Left with none of the royalties from her own books, Colette became a music-hall dancer to evade poverty. During this time, Colette met the niece of Napoleon III, Marquise de Balbeuf, otherwise known as“Missy”, with whom she had an affair. It is principally Colette’s work La Vagabonde (1910,‘The Vagabond’) that draws from her exposure to divorce, affairs, and what Waxman calls Colette’s ‘colourful love life’.
Wider Horizons
In 1912, Colette married Henry de Jouvenel, who was the editor in chief of the paper Le Matin. This second marriage provided her with wider horizons. Since Blériot’s famous first flight across the English Channel in 1909, flying was all the rage. Colette seized her opportunity to fly herself with Henry in a dirigible, or airship. For her, flying above the land, rendered small, helped to bring new perspectives. Not only that, but Colette grasped her chance to expand her career as a journalist in Le Matin, where she wrote short stories and theatre chronicles. Despite the happiness, Colette Jouvenel’s marriage dwindled after her separation from Henry during World War One, and their conflicting ambitions drew them apart.
Golden Years
According to Kuiper, Colette’s best work truly materialised post-war in 1920, starting with her book Chéri (1920), as well as Le Blé en herbe (1923, ‘The Ripening Seed’). Colette married for the third time in 1935. She married Maurice Goudeket, which and this turned out to be a happy partnership. It is also during this time that Colette explores subjects including female sexuality and female desire, drawing from her previous experiences such as when she was a dancer, as well as her experiments with fashion that were unconventional for the time, such as short hair and trousers. Gigi (1944) draws on experiences from this time and is later adapted for the stage and screen, featuring a ‘pre-fame’ Audrey Hepburn, found by Colette herself, in a 1951 Broadway musical, and later an Oscar-winning 1958 film. Thus, despite Colette’s shadowy ghost-writing status at the beginning of her career, she was most certainly recognised for her literary talent during her lifetime. In 1954, Colette was made a member of the prestigious French Académie Goncourt, as well as a grand officer of the Legion of Honour, both of which rarely given to women.
A Final Toast
After a final coupe of champagne, Colette dies in 1954, surrounded by her beloved cats in her Palais-Royal apartment, Paris. In her obituary, TIME wrote that Colette “died a revered national institution.”, evident when she was the first woman to be offered a national, state funeral in France.
Colette’s life is one which refuses to blur into shadow and be eclipsed by sorrow. This is a story where her frustration and hurt fuelled her energy to break the mould, providing tangibility to emotions and human experiences. It is this honest vulnerability of human emotions, exposed on the page, that proves refreshing to readers.
Image courtesy of Henri Manuel via Wikimedia Commons, ©1910, no rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
