Aurelia (Aurélia, ou Le Rêve et La Vie, 1855)

Nerval, Gérard de (1808-1855), translated by Kline, A. S. (contact-email)

Gérard’s last novella, ‘Aurélia, ou la Reve et La Vie’ (‘Aurelia, or Life and the Dream’), modelled stylistically, to a degree, on Dante’s semi-autobiographical ‘La Vita Nuova’, and sharing the latter’s theme of self-reassessment and renewal through the fact of the beloved’s death, drew on Gérard’s unrequited love, and memories of his own troubled mental states, particularly in the period prior to his suicide. Believing that the artist, especially the writer, should bear witness to every facet of human experience, and as a warning to others, he created in this text a psychological profile of his inner disturbances, and the power of dreams, as well as producing an accomplished literary work, one which strongly influenced André Breton and the Surrealist movement. There are aspects of the text that foreshadow science-fiction, while also invoking myth, legend, and arcane religious beliefs, and anticipating the exploration of the psychology of dreams and mania, by Freud, Jung and others. The extent to which Gérard himself believed in the reality or otherwise of his dreams or visions, is unknown, and doubtless varied from time to time. But like Coleridge, with regard to his poem ‘Kubla Khan’, or Dante with regard to his ‘Divine Comedy’, though Gérard’s dreams and visionary experiences stirred his imagination and prompted the work, its literary development was performed by a mind in complete intellectual and rational control.