SOURCE: Gamble, Donald. “Developing Drama: The Earliest contes en vers of Alfred de Musset.” Dalhousie French Studies 12 (spring-summer 1987): 3-18.

In the following essay, Gamble evaluates the narrative and dramatic structure of Musset's early verse works “Don Paez,” “Portia,” and “Les marrons du feu,” published collectively as Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie in 1830.

Les Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie, Musset's first collection of verse, was completed in late 1829 and published in January, 1830. With the exception of an accomplished sonnet, ten chansons still found in anthologies and “Mardoche,” a long poem in the manner of Byron expressly written to round out the volume, the collection contains three contes en vers: “Portia,” “Don Paez” and “Les Marrons du feu.” Characterised as they are by intrigue, violent passion and Mediterranean exoticism, these three poems clearly reflect the literary fashions of their time; that is probably a reason why they are so rarely read in...