Gerard de Nerval De Nerval (pseud. of Gerard Labrunie 1808-1855) was a poet, essayist, dramatist, critic and short story writer. At the age of twenty he had published a translation of Goethe's Faust which had led Goethe to say himself "in reading you, I have never understood myself so well". De Nerval was also a natural Bohemian. Even as a schoolboy, he had escaped to the timber-yards on the Ile Louvier and there he had built himself a log hut and lived in it for days. By the 1830's he was a member of the Petit Cenacle with Celestin Nanteuil, Petrus Borel, Alexandre Dumas and, his lifelong friend, Theophile Gautier - a rebellious group of fervent young writers and artists which flourished in the early years of the July Monarchy who dedicated themselves to the vie d'artiste and to the cult of Art in the new conditions of philistinism and utilitarianism.