Stendhal << stehn DAHL >> (1783-1842) is the pen name of Marie Henri Beyle, one of the chief figures in the history of the French psychological novel. Stendhal was born on Jan. 23, 1783, in Grenoble. He served in the Napoleonic Wars, and Napoleon I became his great hero. Julien Sorel, the hero of Stendhal’s masterpiece The Red and the Black (1830), lives a life of action and has great ambition, as Napoleon did. Stendhal’s other great novel, The Charterhouse of Parma (1839), begins with Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, and tells of political intrigue in Italy. Stendhal died on March 23, 1842.
In his writings, Stendhal was concerned basically with the search for happiness, which he believed could be achieved by the exercise of physical energy and will. Elements of realism and romanticism can be found in his work. He usually neglected other aspects of his novels in favor of analyses of the minute, changing emotional states of his characters.
Stendhal left three partly autobiographical novels unfinished at the time of his death. These novels are The Life of Henri Brulard, Lamiel, and Lucien Leuwen.
