Philippe Ariès

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Philippe Ariès (born July 21, 1914 in Blois , † February 8, 1984 in Toulouse ) was a French medievalist and historian of the Annales School .

His early works are shaped by historical demographics; later he pursued an approach based on the history of mentality . In his internationally successful, nonetheless controversial monographs, he explored the history of childhood and the history of death . Together with Georges Duby and Paul Veyne , he wrote a five-volume story of private life . Ariès was a close friend of Michel Foucault .

Life

His father was from Gironde , his mother from Martinique ; Both were monarchist and found the papal condemnation of Action française in 1926 as a disappointment. Ariès received his education at Catholic schools in Paris. First he attended a Dominican and then a Jesuit- run school.

He studied in Grenoble and Paris (at the Sorbonne ) and first graduated in history and geography. In 1936 he wrote another thesis entitled Les commissaires-examinateurs au Châtelet de Paris au XVIe Siècle . During this time he was still associated with the monarchist Action française. Later, also under the impression of the Vichy regime , he turned away from her and defined himself as a "traditionalist" and supporter of medieval royalty; a certain anti-modernism remained in all of his works.

He failed twice (1939 and 1941) when trying to obtain a university degree from the agrégation d'histoire . Through military service in World War II, he came to an institute for research into colonial agriculture ( Institut des fruits et agrumes coloniaux [IFAC]), where he worked from 1943 to 1978.

In 1943 he published his first work, which thematized the social traditions in rural France. This was followed by a work on the history of the French population and their attitudes towards life (1948). In 1945 his brother Jacques committed suicide on the German front in Uttenweiler at the age of 26 . In 1947 he married his wife Primerose, who was at his side as a researcher in the following years.

In the 1950s he saw himself as a student of Daniel Halévy and Gabriel Marcel . He was not known as a historian in France, but the American publication of his book Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life (Knopf) in 1962 earned him the prestige of English-speaking colleagues. Ariès stayed in the United States several times and published Western Attitudes toward Death in 1974 (Johns Hopkins University Press). This became the great work L'Homme devant la mort (Seuil) , published in France in 1977 . Now the author has been recognized as part of the Annales School by Jacques Le Goff , Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie , Georges Duby and Michel Vovelle .

Other research focuses, in addition to the history of childhood, were the history of sexuality, demographics and the history of mentalities. In 1978 he became “directeur d'études” at the prestigious École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. It was only that year that he left the Institute for Agricultural Research, where he had worked for 37 years. He died in Toulouse in 1984 , where he had settled the year before.

Ariès' position on the history and development of childhood

According to Ariès, the “discovery of childhood” in the 16-18 Century a negative development. In the Middle Ages, society had no idea of ​​childhood and thus also of upbringing. Children were dependent on their parents until around the age of seven, after which they were recognized as independent members of adult society. The relationship between parents and children was comparable to that between teacher and apprentice. There were hardly any emotional ties. There was a collective way of life in society that had no privacy. The function of the family was largely limited to the production of descendants and the continuation of the name and property.

Since the “discovery of childhood”, the idea of ​​the nature and development of the child has changed fundamentally. The function of the family is now more based on conveying norms and values ​​as well as promoting individuality and identity . Ariès is of the opinion that with the beginning of the modern age, children were isolated from adult society and the spheres of life of adults and children were separated. Schools that emphasize discipline and obedience limit the child's freedom.

The thesis of the lack of emotional relationships between parents and their children before the so-called “discovery of childhood” has been rejected in historical studies since the 1980s. However, it has proven to be extremely popular, and it is even more recently repeated in scientific publications.

Fonts

literature

  • Guillaume Gros: Philippe Ariès - Un traditionaliste non conformiste: De l'Action française à l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1914–1984. Presses universitaires du Septentrion, Villeneuve-d'Ascq 2008, ISBN 978-2-7574-0041-8 .
  • Patrick H. Hutton: Philippe Ariès and the politics of French cultural history. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst 2004, ISBN 1-55849-435-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Philippe Ariès: Childhood story. Hanser, Munich / Vienna 1975, p. 45f.
  2. ^ Philippe Ariès: Childhood story. Hanser, Munich / Vienna 1975, p. 92.
  3. ^ Philippe Ariès: Childhood story. Hanser, Munich / Vienna 1975, pp. 45–48.
  4. ^ Klaus Arnold: Child and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Contributions and texts on the history of childhood. Schöningh, Paderborn / Munich 1980, ISBN 3-506-13152-4 , pp. 10ff, 86; Hugh Cunningham: The History of the Child in Modern Times. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2006, pp. 28f, 51; Linda Pollock: Forgotten children. Parent-child relations from 1500 to 1900. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 1983; Barbara Hanawalt: The ties that bound. Peasant families in medieval England. Oxford University Press, New York / Oxford 1986, p. 171.
  5. ↑ Christiane Richard-Elsner: The myth of the discovery of childhood. In: Our youth. 67 (10), 2015, pp. 455-463. doi: 10.2378 / uj2015.art69d ; Albrecht Classen: Philippe Ariès and the Consequences. History of Childhood, Family Relations, and Personal Emotions. Where do we stand today? In: A. Classen (Ed.): Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The results of a paradigm shift in the history of mentality. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, pp. 1–65.
personal data
SURNAME Ariès, Philippe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French medievalist and historian of the Annales school
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Blois
DATE OF DEATH February 8, 1984
Place of death Toulouse