Xavier Forneret
Xavier Forneret was a French writer, poet, playwright and journalist.
Life
Born in 1809 bourgeois family by the name Antoine Charles Ferdinand, he was one of the few members of the Romantic movement who never experienced poverty and could afford to publish his books himself. In his hometown, he became an advocate of the new art. Between 1837 and 1840 he lived in Paris. Spiritually, he was a member of the Bouzingo, a group of poets which advocated a radical bohemian romanticism in life and art; contemporaries and kindred spirits included Gérard de Nerval and Théophile Gautier, yet the Cénacle in the Rue du Doyenné never accepted him as a member, since the radical romantics saw him as an eccentric bourgeois with little talent. He returned to Beaune after three years, living his life of a rich eccentric man. In 1848, he unsuccessfully tried to become a republican politician. He died aged 74, forgotten by both critics and readers.Works
In 1835 he wrote two plays which were staged in Dijon. He paid for the staging; both were total commercial failures. During his years in Paris, he published books which included poems, aphorisms, paradoxes, short prosaic pieces and maxims. He also published several short stories, usually parodies of the then fashionable frenetic style. All these books were self-published and ignored by readers.Interest in his works started to appear after 1918. His reputation was partly rehabilitated by André Breton, who included some of Forneret's poems and aphorisms in his Anthology of Black Humor.
The Grand Prix de l'Humour Noir Xavier Forneret is named in his memory. Recent winners include Serge Joncour, and Tom Sharpe.
A collection of Forneret's work was published in 2013 under the title Écrits complets.