Julien Gracq

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Signature julien gracq.png

Julien Gracq (born July 27, 1910 as Louis Poirier in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil near Angers , † December 22, 2007 in Angers) was a French writer . Gracq was one of the most inconspicuous authors in the French literary landscape in terms of the demand that an author should step back behind his work. He was influenced by German Romanticism and Surrealism , and in his work free creative imagination and symbolism merge .

Life

Between 1921 and 1928 Gracq was a boarding school student in Nantes , after which he went to the famous Lycée Henri IV in Paris for a year . In 1930, Gracq was accepted at the Parisian elite university École Normale Supérieure , where he studied geography, at the same time he attended the École Libre des Sciences Politiques. (Forerunner of the Institut d'études politiques de Paris ), which he successfully completed in 1933. Following his agrégation for history and geography, he began his career as a high school teacher in 1935, first in Nantes, then in Quimper . In 1939 he was drafted as an officer and from 1940 was a prisoner of war in Burghammer near Hoyerswerda , where he wrote a novel and a story in addition to a diary. After the Second World War he continued teaching in Amiens and Angers until he got a position at the Lycée Claude-Bernard in Paris in 1947 , where he taught under his real name Louis Poirier until his retirement in 1970.

In his youth, Gracq read Jules Verne , Edgar Allan Poe and Stendhal with great enthusiasm . During his school and university days in Paris he came into contact with the Arthurian legend, probably through a performance of Wagner's Parsifal , and even traveled to Cornwall on the trail of the Round Table and the Holy Grail . During this time he became interested in Brittany . Another decisive experience was reading André Breton's Nadja . All of these influences have left their mark on Gracq's work.

After a rejection by the renowned French publishing house Gallimard , Gracq published his first work Au château d'Argol in 1938 with the publisher José Corti , to which he remained loyal for decades. The discovery of the novel by André Breton, the “Pope of Surrealism”, made literary critics first sit up and take notice. Although he was never firmly attributed to the Surrealism movement , he always remained connected to its spirit and to the person of André Breton.

Gracq last lived in seclusion in his birthplace Saint-Florent-le-Vieil on the Loire ; he died in December 2007, at the age of 97.

plant

Reading Ernst Jünger's emblematic novel On the Marble Cliffs in 1943 was like a revelation to Gracq: numerous stylistic and thematic parallels in Gracq's subsequent works testify to Jünger's influence. The two authors later met repeatedly in person.

Gracq's first - and only - play, Le Roi pêcheur , premiered in 1949 and panned by critics . This experience contributed to his being skeptical of the French literary scene ever since. After the publication of a relentless pamphlet on the state of literature and the literary prizes, which appeared in the magazine Empédocle in 1950 , Gracq consequently rejected the prestigious Prix ​​Goncourt for his novel Le Rivage des Syrtes a year later and thus sparked a real storm of indignation the media. Since the 1960s, Gracq's fictional work has receded into the background in favor of numerous essays and literary reviews ( Préférences , Lettrines I , Lettrines II and En lisant, en écrivant ), in which both his extensive education and the sharpness of mind on which his criticism is based to shine through. The publication of his complete works in the famous Bibliothèque de la Pléiade during his lifetime testified to the great esteem Gracq enjoyed in France.

Works

  • Au château d'Argol. Novel. 1938. (German: At Argol Castle )
  • Un beau ténébreux. Novel. 1945.
    • The tempter. Novel. translated and with an afterword by Dieter Hornig. Literaturverlag Droschl, Graz 2014, ISBN 978-3-85420-952-2 .
  • Liberté grande. Poems / texts. 1946. Excerpt ("Bewohnbare Welt", translated by Gernot Krämer) in Sinn und Form issue 1/2019, ISBN 978-3-943297-45-4 .
  • La sieste en Flandre hollandaise. Columns. 1946.
  • André Breton. Essay. 1948.
  • Le roi pêcheur. Drama. 1948.
  • La Litterature à l'estomac. Pamphlet. 1950. (German: The consumed literature , contained in: Entdeckungen. Essays on literature and criticism . Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1965.)
  • Le Rivage des Syrtes. Novel. 1951. (German: The banks of the Syrten )
  • Les terres du couchant. Novel fragment. 1953. (French first edition by Bernhild Boie (Ed.), Éditions Corti, Paris 2014, ISBN 978-2-7143-1133-7 )
    • The evening kingdom. Translation and epilogue Dieter Hornig. Literaturverlag Droschl, Graz 2017, ISBN 978-3-85420-987-4 .
  • A balcony en forêt. Narrative. 1958. (German: A balcony in the forest )
  • Préférences. Essays. 1961. (German: Entdeckungen. Essays on literature and criticism )
  • Lettrines I. (), literary reviews . 1967. (German: Witterungen ISBN 3-85420-575-9 .)
  • La Presqu'île. (), Novellas. 1970. (German: The Peninsula. ISBN 3-85420-322-5 .)
  • Lettrines II (), literary reviews . 1974. (German: Witterungen II ISBN 3-85420-683-6 .)
  • Les Eaux étroites. (), Narrative. 1976. (German: The narrow waters ISBN 3-518-01904-X .)
  • En lisant, en écrivant. (), Literary reviews. 1980. (German: Reading writing ISBN 3-85420-448-5 .)
  • La Forme d'une ville. 1985. (German: Die Form einer Stadt ISBN 3-85420-160-5 .)
  • Autour des sept collines. 1988. (German: Rome: Around the Seven Hills ISBN 3-250-10185-0 .)
  • Grand chemin carnets. 1992. (German: The Great Way. Diary of a Wanderer ISBN 3-446-17318-8 .)
  • Entretiens. 2002. (German: Conversations ISBN 978-3-85420-730-6 .)
  • Records from the war . From the French by Dieter Hornig. Droschl, Graz 2013.
  • Complete edition:
    • Œuvres complètes I. (= Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Volume 354). Gallimard, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-07-011162-8 .
    • Œuvres complètes II. (= Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Volume 421). Gallimard, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-07-011287-X .

Film adaptations

  • 1971: Rendezvous in Bray (Rendez-vous à Bray)
  • 1979: A balcony in the forest (Un balcon en forêt)

literature

  • Walter Pabst (ed.): The modern French novel. Interpretations. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1968 (About Auf Schloß Argol )
  • Oskar Roth: Hermes and Herminien. Mythology and Hermetics with Julien Gracq. University Press C. Winter, Heidelberg 1992.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gracq, Julien
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Poirier, Louis (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French author
DATE OF BIRTH July 27, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Florent-le-Vieil near Angers
DATE OF DEATH December 22, 2007
Place of death Angers