Philippe Lejeune

This article deals with the French literary scholar Philippe Lejeune. The Belgian show jumper of the same name can be found under Philippe Le Jeune . An overview of the bearers of the same surname can be found under Lejeune .

Philippe Lejeune (* 1938 ) is a French literary scholar who mainly deals with autobiography . He is also a co-founder of the Autobiographical Society ( Association pour l'autobiographie et le patrimoine autobiographique ) established in 1992 . His most important work is the book The Autobiographical Pact , which appeared in the French original in 1975.

Lejeune tried to create a theoretical basis in order to better delimit the genre of autobiography. To this end, he first formulated their definition: the autobiography is "the retrospective description in prose form that a real person gives of their existence, with the main emphasis on individual life, in particular on the life story of one's own personality." In addition, Lejeune formed the concept of the autobiographical pact : "In order for there to be an autobiography at all, the author must enter into a pact, a contract with his readers, in which he promises to give his life, and nothing but his life, in all details tell."

For Lejeune, exact introspection on the one hand and the claim to truthfulness on the other are the two characteristics of the autobiographical genre. Nevertheless, he admits that many factors (memory gaps, insufficient or excessive truthfulness, the chosen narrative technique, etc.) make it difficult for the company to record its own life story.

The author and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet in particular contradicted the pact urged by Lejeune. While writing his own autobiography, Le Miroir qui revient (1985, German translation by Andrea Spingier: Der wiederkehrende Spiegel , Suhrkamp 1986), he formulated an opposing position, which sparked a long controversy among French intellectuals.

Important publications

• 1971: L'Autobiographie en France
• 1975: Le Pacte autobiographique
  • The autobiographical pact, trans. by Dieter Hornig and Wolfram Bayer (edition suhrkamp / SV 1994)
• 1980: Je est un autre. L'autobiographie de la littérature aux médias
• 1986: Moi aussi
• 1990 "Cher cahier ..." Témoignages sur le journal personnel
• 1990: La Pratique du journal personnel
• 1997: Un journal à soi, ou la passion des journaux intimes
• 1998: Pour l'autobiography
• 2000: Les Brouillons de soi
• 2000: "Cher écran ..." Journal personnel, ordinateur, Internet
• 2005: Signes de vie (Le pacte autobiographique, 2) (2005)
• 2006: Le Journal intime. Histoire et anthologie
• 2013: Autogenèses. Brouillons de soi 2
  • German: Dear diary. On the theory and practice of the journal , translated by Jens Hagestedt, Belleville, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-943157-76-5

Web links

• Philippe Lejeune's website
• Homepage of the Association pour l'Autobiographie et le patrimoine autobiographique

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Against biographism: I about myself . In: The time . November 21, 2012, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed October 12, 2017]).