Gérard de Nerval was a French romantic poet and prose writer. His real name was Gérard Labrunie. He was born on 22 May 1808. Two years after his birth, his mother died in Sicily while accompanying her husband, a military doctor and member of Napoleon the Great's army. The father sent Gerard to his uncle, Antoine Boucher in the province of Valois at Mortefontaine. Returning from the war in 1814, his father sent him back to Paris. In 1820 at college, he developed a friendship with Théophile Gautier.
Nerval wrote romantic poetry. He was passionately concerned with the metaphysical and the search for God, which is evident in his work and in the way he deals with the real world. One of the admirers of his work was Victor Hugo. He wrote the remarkable short stories «The Daughters of Fire», «The Dream and Life» and «The Erotic Bohemian». He translated many German literary works into French, including Goethe's Faust, which made him famous. His travel narratives about the East were another work that came out of his travels in the countries of the Ottoman Empire, published in 1851. In this work, Nerval also describes his time in Kythera.
Nerval had chronic mental disorders. Broken and afflicted by his mental illness, he committed suicide on January 26, 1855.
Excerpt from “Journey to the East”:
«I was looking for the shepherds and shepherdesses of Watteau, their garlanded boats approaching the flowered banks, dreaming of those mad companions of the pilgrims of love... I saw nothing there but a gentleman marking snipe and pigeons.».
