Political and Social Views, Controversy and Legacy
Daudet was a monarchist and a fervent opponent of the French Republic. Daudet was also anti-Jewish, though less famously so than his son Léon. The main character of Le Nabab was inspired by a Jewish politician who was elected as a deputy for Nîmes. Daudet campaigned against him and lost. Daudet counted many literary figures amongst his friends, including Edouard Drumont, who founded the Antisemitic League of France and founded and edited the anti-Semitic newspaper La Libre Parole. Daudet also exchanged anti-Semitic correspondence with Richard Wagner.
It has been argued that Daudet deliberately exaggerated his links to Provence to further his literary career and social success (following Frederic Mistral's success), including lying to his future wife about his "Provençal" roots.
Numerous colleges and schools in contemporary France bear his name and his books are still widely read and several are still in print.
Read more about this topic: Alphonse Daudet
Famous quotes containing the words political, social, controversy and/or legacy:
“The people of Western Europe are facing this summer a series of tragic dilemmas. Of the hopes that dazzled the last twenty years that some political movement might tend to the betterment of the human lot, little remains above ground but the tattered slogans of the past.”
—John Dos Passos (18961970)
“How strange to have failed as a social creatureeven criminals do not fail that waythey are the laws Loyal Opposition, so to speak. But the insane are always mere guests on earth, eternal strangers carrying around broken decalogues that they cannot read.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (18961940)
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but Im not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 14661536)