Alexandre Soumet

Alexandre Soumet (February 18, 1788 - March 30, 1845), French poet, was born at Castelnaudary, "département" of Aude.

His father wished him to enter the army, but an early-developed love of poetry turned the boy's ambition in other directions. He was an admirer of Klopstock and Schiller, then little known in France, and reproached Madame de Staël with lack of enthusiasm for her subject in "De l'Allemagne".

Soumet came to Paris in 1810, and some poems in honor of Napoleon secured his nomination as auditor of the Conseil d'état. His well-known elegy "La pauvre fille" appeared in 1814, and two successful tragedies produced in 1822, "Clytemnestre" and "Saül", secured his admission to the Academy in 1824. "Jeanne d'Arc" (1825) aroused great enthusiasm, and was the best of his plays. Among his other pieces "Elisabeth de France" (1828), a weak imitation of Schiller's "Don Carlos", may be noted, but Soumet's real bent was towards epic poetry. His most considerable work is a poem inspired by Klopstock, "La divine épopée", which describes the descent of Christ into Hades.

Under Louis XVIII he became librarian of Saint-Cloud, and subsequently was transferred to Rambouillet and to Compiègne.

He died leaving an unfinished epic on "Jeanne d'Arc". His daughter Gabrielle (Mme Beauvain d'Altenheim) had collaborated with him in some of his later works.

References

*1911