Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve.

Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve (born December 23, 1804 in Boulogne-sur-Mer , France , † October 13, 1869 in Paris ) was a French literary critic and writer.

Life

He received his education in Boulogne-sur-Mer and in the Lycée Charlemagne in Paris and then studied medicine at the University of Liège . After he had published a laudatory review of Victor Hugo's odes and ballads in 1827 , the two became friends. They attended Charles Nodier's romantic literary circle together , and Sainte-Beuve had a liaison with Hugo's wife, Adèle Foucher . His literary rise began with Tableau historique et critique de la poésie française et du théâtre français au XVI e siècle from 1828, a historical-critical work in the style of F. Walter Scott . In the following years he wrote volumes of poetry under a pseudonym ( Poésies , Consolations and Pensées d'août ). "Dark, indefinite longing, overwhelming feelings and an excess of self-analysis" (Meyers Konversationslexikon) make his protagonists kindred spirits of " Werther ".

After the July Revolution he let himself be carried away by Saint-Simonism for a while ; he wrote for the Paris newspapers "Globe" and "National" and wrote a novel with Volupté (1834). It was only when he was employed by the " Revue des Deux Mondes " that he was able to continue his early literary-historical work and develop his talents to the full. Honoré de Balzac , the passionate narrator of his own experiences, erected a questionable memorial to him in Les illusions perdues (English: lost illusions ) from 1839 in the figure of the talented and unscrupulous upstart Lucien Chardon .

In 1840, Sainte-Beuve was given the post of curator at the Mazarin library ; In 1845 he was appointed a member of the Académie française . After the coup of Napoleon III. Sainte-Beuve received the professorship of Latin poetry at the Collège de France , but his lectures led to unrest among the mostly republican-minded student body, so that he was soon banned from reading. Since his teaching activity at the École normal supérieure (1857–61) came to an abrupt end, he withdrew into private life. Napoleon III rewarded his services in 1865 by an appointment to the Senate .

duel

"Better to be dead than wet" - Sainte-Beuves duel in the rain 1830

On September 20, 1830, Sainte-Beuve met Paul-François Dubois, co-owner of the newspaper Le Globe, in the woods of Romainville for a duel. The two duelists fired four shots in the rain without hitting. Sainte-Beuve, who had not given his umbrella out of his hand, remarked: “Better dead than wet”.

Reception in Germany

Friedrich Nietzsche , actually an avowed opponent of Sainte-Beuve, had the wife of his friend Franz Overbeck , Ida Overbeck , translate the Causeries du lundi into German in 1880 . Until then, despite its great importance in France, Sainte-Beuve had never appeared in German, as it was regarded as the representative of a French way of thinking that was frowned upon in Germany. In 1880 Ida Overbeck's translation appeared under the title “Die Menschen des XVIII. Century ". Nietzsche wrote to Ida Overbeck on August 18, 1880: “An hour ago, dear Professor, I received the 'People of the 18th Century', I leafed through it and saw this and that good word and behind every good word so much, much more ! It delighted me, and at the same time I was seized by a feeling of deep inexpressible deprivation. I think I cried, and it would be strange if this little good book did not arouse the senses of many others. ”Ida Overbeck's translation is an important document of Franco-German cultural transfer, but it has largely been ignored. A critical and commented new edition of this translation was only published in 2014.

Theodor W. Adorno has characterized the essayistic - biographical spelling of Sainte-Beuve's literary criticism as “convenient second hand realism of bringing people closer” and “accomplished superficiality”.

Works

  • Histoire du Port Royal (1840-48)
  • Causeries du lundi , a collection of his features articles published in various magazines (1851–61)
  • Chateaubriand et son groupe littéraire (1860)
  • Poésies complètes (1863)
  • Critiques et portraits littéraires (1832–39)
  • Portraits littéraires (1844) ( table of contents )
  • Portraits contemporains (1846)
  • La galerie de femmes célèbres (1859)
  • La nouvelle galerie de femmes célèbres (1863)
  • Notice on M. Littré , sa vie et ses trauvaux (1863)

German-language editions

  • Portraits of women from four centuries. [Ed. Stefanie Strizek. Introduction Hanns Floerke]. Munich and Leipzig, Georg Müller, 1914. 2 volumes.
  • People of the XVIII. Century . Translated by Ida Overbeck, initiated by Friedrich Nietzsche. With newly discovered notes by Ida Overbeck, newly edited by Andreas Urs Sommer. The Other Library , Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-8477-0355-6 .
  • Causeries on Monday: education from the spirit of the salons. Ed., Trans. and with an afterword by Robert Zimmer . Verlag Das Arsenal , Berlin 2013. ISBN 978-3-931109-61-5 .
  • Literary portraits from France of the XVII. – XIX. Century . Edited by Stefan Zweig. 2 volumes. Frankfurter Verlags-Anstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1923. With 22 essays and an introduction by Zweig.
  • Literary portraits. Transl. And explanations by Rolf Müller, extr. And introduction by Katharina Scheinfuß. Dieterich'sche Verlagbuchhandlung , Leipzig 1958 ( Dieterich collection 204); WBG , Darmstadt 1958.

See also

Secondary literature

  • Wolf-Dieter Lange (Ed.): French literature of the 19th century. Volume 3: Naturalism and Symbolism. UTB für Wissenschaft, 944 (for Quelle & Meyer), Heidelberg 1986, ISBN 3494021120 , by Johannes Thomas (Romanist) , pp. 23–42
  • Wolf Lepenies : Sainte-Beuve: On the threshold of modernity. Hanser, Munich 1997. ISBN 3423343559 ; dtv , Munich 2006 ISBN 3423343559 .
  • Christopher Prendergast: The Classic: Sainte-Beuve and the Nineteenth-Century Culture Wars. Oxford University Press , New York 2007 ISBN 3446191216
  • Andreas Urs Sommer : Finding a century (s). Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Ida Overbeck, Franz Overbeck , Friedrich Nietzsche and their enlightenment (s). In: Sainte-Beuve: People of the XVIII. Century . Translator Ida Overbeck. With newly discovered notes by Ida Overbeck, newly edited by Andreas Urs Sommer. The Other Library, Berlin 2014, pp. 7–75
  • Karlheinz Stierle : L'homme et l'œuvre. Sainte-Beuves literary criticism. In: literary criticism - claim and reality. DFG symposium 1989. Ed. Wilfried Barner . Metzler, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-476-00727-8 , pp. 185-196
  • René Wellek : History of literary criticism. Vol. 2. De Gruyter, Berlin 1977
  • Robert Zimmer: Sainte-Beuve as an educator . In: Sainte-Beuve: Causeries on Monday: Enlightenment from the spirit of the salons . Das Arsenal, Berlin 2013 ISBN 978-3-931109-61-5 pp. 148–178
  • Kurt Kötz: The image of France in the work of Sainte-Beuve. Works on Romance philology, 43. Heinrich Pöppinghaus, Langendreer 1937. Zugl. Diss. Phil.

Web links

Commons : Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve  - Sources and full texts (French)

notes

  1. ↑ Balzac also attacked his novel Port-Royal in his magazine Revue parisienne (1840)
  2. ^ Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve: People of the XVIII. Century. Translated by Ida Overbeck, initiated by Friedrich Nietzsche. With newly discovered notes by Ida Overbeck, newly edited by Andreas Urs Sommer. The Other Library, Berlin 2014 (=  The Other Library. Founded by Hans Magnus Enzensberger . Vol. 355), ISBN 978-3-8477-0355-6 ; The press says: "Knowledgeable [...] the introduction shows how Sainte-Beuve's Opus Nietzsche, after initial enthusiasm, coagulates into a 'philosophical-polemical phantasmagoria' and the actual reading takes a back seat." (Janika Gelinek: Monday Talks The portraits of the French writer Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804–1869) of his contemporaries can still be read today with pleasure. In: NZZ am Sonntag of August 31, 2014, supplement Neue Bücher, p. 24.)
  3. ↑ Theodor W. Adorno: The scheme of mass culture. Culture Industry (continued) (1942). In: Max Horkheimer , Theodor W. Adorno: Dialectic of Enlightenment. Philosophical fragments (= Theodor W. Adorno: Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. 3rd ed. By Rolf Tiedemann ). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-518-07494-6 , pp. 297-335, quotation p. 306; Theodor W. Adorno: The essay as form. In: Collected Writings. Edited by Rolf Tiedemann. Vol. 11: Notes on literature. 3. Edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-518-57232-6 , pp. 9-33, quotation: p. 12.
  4. ↑ Contents: Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Mme de Grafigny and Voltaire, Mme du Châtelet, Mme Latour-Franqueville and Rousseau, Diderot, Vauvenarges, Mlle de Lespinasse and Beaumarchais.
  5. ↑ Volume 1 : Introduction by Stefan Zweig / essays on Molière, Pascal, Frau von Sévigné, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Le Sage, Marquise du Deffand, Vauvenargues, De Bernis, Rousseau ( Confessions ), Diderot, Abbé Galiani. Volume 2 : Essays on Fräulein von Lespinasse ( letters ), Prince von Ligne, Chamfort, Beaumarchais, Camille Desmoulins, Madame de Staël, Balzac, Alfred de Musset, Madame Récamier, Flaubert ( Madame Bovary ).
  6. ↑ On Jean de La Fontaine , Molière , Jean de La Bruyère , Le Sage , Diderot , Madame de Staël , Pierre-Jean de Béranger , Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac. Since Sainte-Beuve has expressed himself critically in literature about the author several times in the course of his life, the lack of mention of the French sources in this edition is regrettable. The sources obtained from the above Editions from 1834–1863 are shown in WP as follows: the individual author has a link, either as a comment or under web links, and with its help the original text (transcribed or as a scan) can be read. - For German-language print editions: there may be further editions of such portraits, also in German mostly in the old spelling “Portraits”, e.g. B. transl. v. Stefan Zweig . There are other, even earlier compilations, always with different characters, depending on the interests of the editor.
personal data
SURNAME Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French author
DATE OF BIRTH December 23, 1804
PLACE OF BIRTH Boulogne-sur-Mer , France
DATE OF DEATH October 13, 1869
Place of death Paris