Albert Béguin

Albert Béguin (born July 17, 1901 in La Chaux-de-Fonds , † May 3, 1957 in Rome ) was a Swiss essayist , literary scholar and editor .

Life

Béguin completed his Baccalauréat in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1919 . From 1919 to 1924 he studied at the University of Geneva and graduated with a licentiate . Then he moved to Paris . There he worked as a bookseller and translator for authors from the German Romantic era such as Jean Paul and ETA Hoffmann . He then spent five years as a lecturer in French language and literature at the University of Halle . At the same time he was working on his work L'âme romantique et le rêve , a monograph on German Romanticism, which was a great success. He also dealt with the rise of National Socialism . In this context, he questioned the role of academics and attacked the labor camps and the persecution of Jews .

In 1934 Albert Béguin received a teaching position at the Collège Jean-Calvin . In 1937 he submitted his doctoral thesis with the title Le rêve chez les romantiques allemands et dans la poésie française moderne (Eng. "The dream among the German romantics and in modern French poetry") at the University of Geneva. From 1937 to 1946 he held a chair for French literature at the University of Basel . His seminars reflected his personal interests: the spiritual dimension of poetic work with Paul Claudel or Gérard de Nerval , existential unrest with Léon Bloy or Georges Bernanos , the lost paradise with Alain-Fournier . In 1942, Béguin founded the Cahiers du Rhône . By publishing works by Charles Péguy , Louis Aragon , Paul Éluard , Pierre Emmanuel , Loys Masson , Pierre Jean Jouve , Guy Lévis Mano , Jean Cayrol and Jules Supervielle during the Second World War , he was able to provide a platform for critical French authors . He also contributed to other publications of the resistance, such as the anthology Cri de la France , in which he published a famous translation of the legend of the Holy Grail .

In 1946, Béguin returned to Paris. After the death of Emmanuel Mounier in 1950 he headed the magazine Esprit until his own death , in which he campaigned for the artistic freedom of writers. There he also published studies on India and Germany as well as literary texts on Blaise Pascal , Honoré de Balzac , Gérard de Nerval , Charles Péguy , Léon Bloy and Charles Ferdinand Ramuz .

In 1929 he married the writer Raymonde Vincent , who was awarded the Prix ​​Femina in 1937 . His brother is the journalist Pierre Béguin .

Works

• L'âme romantique et le rêve , essai sur le romantisme allemand et la poésie française , 1937 (German: Traumwelt und Romantik. An attempt on the romantic soul in Germany and in the poetry of France , German by Jürg Peter Walser, ed. And with with an afterword by Peter Grotzer, Bern / Munich: Francke 1972.)
• Gérard de Nerval , 1937
• Nos Cahiers , 1942.
• La Prière de Péguy , 1942.
• Léon Bloy l'Impatient , 1944.
• Le Livre Noir du Vercors , 1944.
• Faiblesse de l'Allemagne , 1946.
• Balzac visionnaire , 1946-1947.
• Patience de Ramuz , 1950.
• Pascal , 1952.
• Création et Destinée
  • Volume I, Essais de critique littéraire - L'âme romantique allemande, L'expérience poétique, Critique de la critique
  • Volume II, La réalité du rêve
• Bloy mystique de la douleur , 1948

Editions and Anthologies

• Gérard de Nerval , Textes choisis , Guy Lévis Mano, 1939.
• Gérard de Nerval, Poésies , critical edition, Mermod, 1944.
• Gérard de Nerval, Aurélia and Les Filles de Feu , Skira , 1944.
• Gérard de Nerval, oeuvres (2 volumes), critical edition (edited with Jean Richter), Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Gallimard (1952).
• Honoré de Balzac , Petite collection Balzac , 12 volumes, Albert Skira, Geneva, 1946.
• Honoré de Balzac, L'Œuvre de Balzac , 16 volumes
• Saint Bernard de Clairvaux , text , together with Paul Zumthor, LUF, 1944.
• La Quête du Graal , LUF, 1945
• ETA Hoffmann , Œuvres complètes , éditions Phébus (with Madeleine Laval ), 1956–1958.

Translations

• ETA Hoffmann, Salvator Rosa - Kreisleriana - Le Chat Murr , Schiffrin, Fourcade, Gallimard, 1926, 1932, 1943.
• ETA Hoffmann, Le Chat Murr , Gallimard, 1943.
• Eduard Mörike , Le Voyage de Mozart , Fourcade, 1929.
• Jean Paul , Choix de Rêves - Hespérus - Le Jubilé , Stock, 1930–1931.
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Entretien avec Müller - Confession d'une belle âme , Stock, 1930–1931.
• Ludwig Tieck , La Coupe d'Or , Denoël, 1933.
• Achim von Arnim , L'Invalide fou , Fontaine, 1945.

literature

• Claire Jaquier: Béguin, Albert. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Martine Noirjean de Ceuninck, Jean Borie (ed.): De l'amitié. Homage to Albert Béguin . Université de Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Librairie Droz, Genève 2001.
• Pierre Grotzer: Les écrits d'Albert Béguin - Essai de bibliographie . Editions A la Baconnière, Neuchâtel 1967.

Web links

• Publications by and about Albert Béguin in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
• Literature by and about Albert Béguin in the catalog of the German National Library