Louis Ménard
Louis Ménard , actually Louis-Nicolas Ménard , (born October 19, 1822 in Paris ; † February 9, 1901 ibid) was a French religious scholar, historian and chemist.
Ménard was the uncle of the symbolist painter Émile-René Ménard .
Ménard a. a. at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand , where he was the classmate of Charles Baudelaire .
At the age of 21 Ménard made his debut in 1843 with his translation of " Prometheus ". He published his translation of "Prometheus unbound" by Percy Bysshe Shelley under the pseudonym Louis de Senneville . But since the success was not that great, Ménard dealt with natural sciences, especially chemistry. During his experiments in 1846 he discovered collodion , but neither he nor others recognized its value.
Politically engaged and interested, Ménard was part of the socialists. He took part in the February Revolution in 1848 and because of his pamphlet “Prologue d'un révolution” he had to go into exile - first to London , later to Brussels , where he a. a. made the acquaintance of Karl Marx .
In 1852 Ménard was able to return to Paris. From this time on he was very interested in Greek, Roman and above all Indian antiquity. He shared this interest with Charles Leconte de Lisle , with whom he dealt with these philosophical and theological theories. Ideas of this syncretism can also be found later in his works; z. B. "Rêveries d'un paien mystique".
From around 1886 Ménard turned to painting and joined the painter Théodore Rousseau . Today Ménard is therefore also part of the environment of the Barbizon School . Jules Breton , also a painter, brought Ménard together with the Parnassiens , which he then also joined. Alphonse Lemerre took some of Ménard's poems into the later famous anthology Le Parnasse contemporain .
After the war of 1870/71 during the Paris Commune , Ménard went back into exile and wrote several pamphlets there to defend them. Returned a few years later, Ménard was entrusted with a teaching position at the École des Arts décoratifs and in 1895 he was promoted to “Professor of Universal History”.
Works (selection)
- Fiction
- Prométhée délivré . 1844 (translation of Prometheus unbound )
- Poemes . 1855
- Non-fiction
- Études sur les origines du christianisme . 1894
- Histoire des grecs . 1884
- Lettres d'un mort. Opinions d'un paien sur la société modern . 1895
- La religion et philosophique en Egypt . 1899
- Rêveries d'un paien mystique .
- Symbolique des religions anciennes et modern . 1897
literature
- Paul Arnold: Ésoterisme de Baudelaire. Essai d'art et de philosophie . Paris 1972, ISBN 2-7116-0029-7 (especially the 1st chapter Charles Baudelaire et Louis Ménard )
- Winfried Engler : Lexicon of French Literature (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 388). Kröner, Stuttgart 1974, ISBN 3-520-38801-4 , pp. 612-613.
- Henri Peyre: Ménard (1822-1901) . AMS Press, New York 1973 (reprint of New Haven 1922 edition)
Web links
- Literature by and about Louis Ménard in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ménard, Louis |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ménard, Louis-Nicolas (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French religious scholar, historian and chemist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 19, 1822 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 9, 1901 |
| Place of death | Paris |