Jean Guéhenno

Jean Guéhenno , actually Marcel-Jules-Marie Guéhenno (born March 25, 1890 in Fougères , † September 22, 1978 in Paris ), was a French educator, journalist and writer, member of the Académie française , who represented humanist and socialist positions. He drew attention mainly with essays , an extensive Rousseau biography and autobiographical writings. In addition to Jean-Jacques Rousseau , he was mainly influenced by Jules Michelet and Ernest Renan . His most important works are still published in France; several have also been translated into German and Japanese.

life and work

Guéhenno grew up in Brittany . As the son of a seamstress and a shoemaker, he had to drop out of school at 14 for financial reasons, but then managed to finance a university course by working in a shoe factory. Since in France at that time a higher education was usually only available to the offspring of aristocrats and the wealthy, this was an unusual career. He helped ensure that Guéhenno stood up for equal opportunities and justice throughout his life. On the flip side, however, he also makes it understandable why Guéhenno “declared Montaigne a revolutionary” and came to the conclusion that more acceptable social conditions can only be achieved under the leadership of “a moral aristocracy that should support the state”.

Called up for military service in 1914, the young Breton was seriously wounded in March 1915. After his recovery he was a teacher for the war blind, at the end of the war an officer - admittedly also a pacifist . With the Agrégation de Lettres he teaches at various high schools, from 1927 to 1944 in Paris. In addition, he turns to journalism. From 1928 to 1934 he was editor of Europe magazine . It also publishes the 1927 petition against the “Law on the General Organization of the Nation in Times of War”, which Guéhenno signs alongside Alain , Louis Guilloux , Jules Romains and many other critical cultural workers. However, worsening differences with the supporters of Soviet communism who dominated Europe lead Guéhenno to found the weekly Vendredi (Friday) together with André Chamson (who will head it) in 1934 , which only lasted until 1938. He also writes for Les Lettres françaises , Le Figaro and Le Figaro Littéraire - not to forget his books.

Brothers in spirit

Guéhenno's first book came out in 1927. It deals with the historian Jules Michelet , whom he - according to Koenraad Geldorf - considered a brother in spirit: loathing of the privileged intellectuals; ambivalent attitude to culture; Respect for the people and their coping with everyday life; finally, the refusal to separate politics and philosophy from the personal. Guéhenno moved away from pacifism under the impression of the German occupation regime. However, he no longer takes up the gun himself; rather he writes for important newspapers of the Resistance (for which he will later receive a medal in March 1947). In addition, he begins in this dark time with his Rousseau, which swells to three volumes .

After the liberation he was appointed inspector general for public education, literature and grammar. The office (1945–61) is connected with trips abroad to Africa and America, which (like the underground work for the Resistance) are reflected in some books. Guéhenno's first wife Jeanne Maurel (married in 1916) died in 1933 of a serious illness. With her he had daughter Louise. In 1946 he married Annie Rospabé, who gave birth to their son Jean-Marie in 1949. Guéhenno dies in 1978.

Awards

• Prix ​​des Ambassadeurs (for Rousseau ) 1953
• Grand prix littéraire de la ville de Paris (for the complete works) 1955
• Appointed to chair 6 of the Académie française in 1962
• Prix ​​mondial Cino Del Duca 1973
• A street in Rennes and high schools in Fougères , Saint-Amand-Montrond , Flers , Vannes and a college in Lambesc (near Marseille ) are named after Guéhenno

Works

• L'évangile éternel: Etude sur Michelet , Study on Michelet, Grasset Verlag, 1927
• Caliban parle (Caliban speaks), Grasset, 1928
• Conversion à l'humain , Grasset, 1931
• Journal d'un homme de 40 ans , Grasset, 1934, German A man of 40 years: Diary , Zurich 1936 (autobiographical, translated into several languages)
• Jeunesse de la France (Youth of France), Grasset, 1936
• Journal d'une révolution , Grasset, 1939 (time of the Popular Front)
• Dans la prison (In prison), Éditions de Minuit, 1944 (occupation, resistance)
• La France dans le monde (France in the World), Éditions de la Liberté, 1946
• Journal des années noires 1940-1944 (Journal of the Black Years), Gallimard, 1947 (Occupation, Resistance)
  • English translation: Diary of the Dark Years, 1940-1944. Oxford University Press , 2014
• Jean-Jacques, en marge des "Confessions": 1712-1750 (Rousseau), Volume I, Grasset, 1948
• La Part de la France , Éditions du Mont-Blanc, Switzerland 1949
• Jean-Jacques: Roman et vérité, 1750-1758 , Rousseau Volume II, Grasset, 1950
• Jean-Jacques, 1758-1778: Grandeur et misère d'un esprit , Rousseau Volume III, Grasset, 1952
• Voyages, tournée américaine, tournée africaine , travel signs, Gallimard, 1952
• Aventures de l'esprit (Adventures of the Spirit), Gallimard, 1954
• La France et les noirs (France and the Blacks), Gallimard, 1954
• La Foi difficile (Difficult Faith), Grasset, 1957 (autobiographical)
• Sur le chemin des hommes (In the footsteps of mankind), Grasset, 1959
• Changer la vie: Mon enfance et ma jeunesse (childhood and adolescence), Grasset, 1961 (autobiographical)
• Notes , Éditions Estienne, 1963
• Ce que je crois (What I Believe), Grasset, 1964
• La Mort des autres (The Death of Others), Grasset, 1968
• Caliban et Prospero: Suivi d'autres essais , Gallimard, 1969
• Carnets du vieil écrivain (Old Writer's Notes), Grasset, 1971
• L'Indépendance de l'esprit: Correspondance entre Jean Guéhenno et Romain Rolland, 1919-1944 , correspondence with Romain Rolland , Albin Michel, 1975
• Dernières lumières, derniers plaisirs (Last Enlightenments, Last Joys), Grasset, 1977 (a summary of life and thoughts)

published posthumously

• Entre le passé et l'avenir: Barrès, Descartes, Diderot, Gide, Goethe, Hugo, Jaurès, Lawrence, Lénine, Malraux, Mann, Marx, Montherlant, Nietzsche, Péguy, Trotski (between past and future), Grasset, 1979
• (With Pierre Citron and Jean Giono ) Correspondance 1928-1969 , Seghers, 1991
• Jean Guéhenno et Monsieur Gide: Textes d ' André Gide et de Jean Guéhenno , Ouest éditions (Nantes), 1993
• Jean Guéhenno - Louis Guilloux : Correspondance 1927-1967. Les paradoxes d'une amitié , La Part Commune publisher, 2011

literature

• Denise Bourdet: Jean Guéhenno. In: Revue de Paris. March 1963, pp. 111-115.
• Robert Speaight: Declarations of Independence. In: The Times Literary Supplement. December 12, 1975, ISSN  0040-7895 , p. 1476.
• Jean-Albert Bédé, William B. Edgerton (Eds.): Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature. 2nd edition, fully revised and enlarged. Columbia University Press, New York NY 1980, ISBN 0-231-03717-1 .
• Rosemary Chapman: Autodidacticism and the Desire for Culture. In: Nottingham French Studies. Herbst 1992, ISSN  0029-4586 , pp. 84-101.
• Nadia Lie, Theo d'Haen (Ed.): Constellation Caliban. Figurations of a Character. Rodopi, Amsterdam et al. 1997, ISBN 90-420-0238-7 ( Textxet. Studies in Comparative Literature 10).
• Philippe Niogret: La revue Europe et les romans de l'entre-deux-guerres (1923–1939). L'Harmattan, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-7475-6553-X ( Espaces Littéraires ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Gale, Detroit 2002
2. ↑ Winfried Engler : Lexicon of French Literature (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 388). 2nd, improved and enlarged edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-520-38802-2 .
3. ↑ Academy ( Memento of the original from December 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ The village of Guéhenno , located in the Breton department of Morbihan , was probably already called that before the author was born
5. ↑ It is the most famous collection of essays from Guéhenno's pen. The title alludes to a Shakespeare character on whom Renan meditated

Web links

• Literature by and about Jean Guéhenno in the catalog of the German National Library
• Short biography and list of works of the Académie française (French)
• Site of the Society of Friends in Fougères