In this poetical memoir, William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63) looks fondly back on when he was poor and 21, carousing with his mates in his tiny attic room. It sounds like a doddering old man trying to recapture his golden youth, but Thackeray was barely 30 when he wrote this. Of course people grew up fast in those days, and a lot had happened to him by then: he had already inherited and gambled away a fortune, taken a wife and had her committed for insanity, and was a well-established novelist, columnist, illustrator and poet. Appearances, however, can be deceiving. The 21-year-old in the poem is seen celebrating Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz, which happened in 1805, 6 years before Thackeray was born. The nostalgic narrator is therefore well into his 50s, in an age when 60 was considered almost second childhood; Thackeray himself was younger than that when he died.
But why Napoleon, sworn enemy of all things English? Thackeray was fascinated by the French leader, having actually seen him at St Helena on the voyage from his birthplace in India, and explored his ambiguous legacy in many of his writings. The Garret was originally published in his Paris Sketch Book, inspired by a song of chansonnier Pierre-Jean de Béranger, so the garret-dweller was actually French (though his lover Jessy had a very English name) and naturally applauded his Emperor. Of course, his older and wiser self must ironically acknowledge that neither Napoleon nor Jessy was quite what they appeared to those innocent eyes.
When looking back at former periods, comedy often fares badly, being too tied to the time when it is written. But Thackeray's satirical spirit has survived better than many, and Vanity Fair and Barry Lyndon, his best-known works, have often been adapted to modern media. And I think a lot of old-timers even now can well identify with the spirit of The Garret!
Негізгі бет Henry Makepeace Thackeray - The Garret
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