Jean de Crèvecoeur

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Jean de Crèvecoeur

Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur , anglicized Hector St. John de Crevecoeur , (born January 31, 1735 in Caen , France , † November 12, 1813 in Sarcelles , Paris ) was a French - American writer .

Life

Crèvecoeur served in the French colonial militia in Canada in 1754 and later worked as a surveyor. In 1765 he became a citizen of the province (later state) of New York and bought a large farm in the hinterland. There he wrote essays and story sketches in American English; a selection was published in London in 1782 under the title Letters from an American Farmer .

The American War of Independence forced him to return to Europe in 1780. He finally reached France via Great Britain , where he made contact with his father Armand de Crèvecoeur. In Paris in 1784 he published Lettres d'un Cultivateur Américain , a French version of his "American Farmer", which differs greatly in style and expression from the English model (an expanded new edition followed in 1787). The English and even more so the French version made Crèvecoeur the most famous American author of his time. Within a few years, German and Dutch translations of his "Letters of an American Farmer" appeared.

Readers in many European countries found out about characteristic elements of a new image of America for the first time through Crèvecoeur - of life on the western border of settlement ("frontier"), of the "melting pot", the mixing of immigrants from different European countries into a new breed of people Americans (“What is an American?”) And the “American dream” of working your way up from simple beginnings to prosperity and success - regardless of the class differences that were typical for Europe and its feudalist states.

He returned to the United States as French consul in 1783 after the Peace of Paris . As such, Crèvecoeur resided in New York , since his property was completely destroyed . During a stay in France he saw the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 . His attempt to return to the USA failed in 1794 when James Monroe , the new American ambassador in Paris, refused him the necessary support. Crèvecoeur withdrew to the family estate near Sarcelles . It was here that the first preparatory work for his late work, which appeared in 1801 under the title “Voyage dans la Haute Pensylvanie et dans l'état de New York”, was made. In the following year, a German translation, albeit abbreviated, appeared; an English translation was not published until 1964.

Crèvecoeur published his letters in English under the pseudonym John Hector St. John , the name under which he was originally naturalized in New York. This work is one of the most important literary sources on everyday colonial life and the emergence of the American nation.

From 1783 he was a member of the Académie des Sciences in Paris.

Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur died on November 12, 1813 at the age of 78 in Sarcelles.

Works

  • The divided loyalist.
  • Letters from an American Farmer . 1782.
  • Lettres d'un Cultivateur Américain. 1784; extended in 1787.
  • Voyage aux grandes salines tyrolliennes de Reichenhall. 1808.
  • Voyage dans la Haute Pensylvanie et dans l'état de New York. 1801.
  • Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America. Published in 1925 from the estate.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter C. Académie des sciences, accessed on November 3, 2019 (French).
personal data
SURNAME Crèvecoeur, Jean de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Crèvecoeur, Michel-Guillaume Jean de (full name); John Hector St John (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer of French origin
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1735
PLACE OF BIRTH Caen , France
DATE OF DEATH November 12, 1813
Place of death Sarcelles , Paris