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Selected essays
English (translation)
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
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About the author
Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve
1,477 books40 followersCharles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was a literary critic and one of the major figures of French literary history.
He was born in Boulogne, educated there, and studied medicine at the Collège Charlemagne in Paris (1824-27). In 1828, he served in the St. Louis Hospital. Beginning in 1824, he contributed literary articles, the Premier lundis of his collected Works, to the Globe newspaper, and, in 1827, he came, through a review of Victor Hugo's Odes et ballads, into close association with Hugo and the Cénacle, the literary circle that strove to define the ideas of the rising Romanticism and struggle against classical formalism. Sainte-Beuve became friendly with Hugo after publishing a favourable review of the author's work but later had an affair with Hugo's wife, which, naturally enough, led to their estrangement. Curiously, when Sainte-Beuve was made a member of the French Academy in 1845, the ceremonial duty of giving the reception speech fell upon Hugo.
Sainte-Beuve published collections of poems and the partly autobiographical novel Volupté in 1834. His articles and essays were collected the volumes Port-Royal and Portraits littéraires.
During the turmoil of 1848 in Europe, he lectured at Liège on Chateaubriand et son groupe littéraire. He returned to Paris in 1849 and began his series of topical columns, Causeries du lundi ('Monday Chats') in the newspaper, Le Constitutionnel. When Louis Napoleon became Emperor, he made Sainte-Beuve professor of Latin poetry at the Collège de France, but anti-Imperialist students hissed him, and he resigned.
After several books of poetry and a couple of failed novels, Sainte-Beuve began to undertake literary research, of which the most important is Port-Royal. He continued to contribute to La Revue contemporaine.
Port-Royal (1837-1859), probably Sainte-Beuve's masterpiece, is an exhaustive history of the Jansenist abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs. It not only influenced the history of religious belief, i.e., the methodology of such research, but also the philosophy of history and the history of esthetics.
He was made Senator in 1865, in which capacity he distinguished himself by his pleas for freedom of speech and of the press. According to Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly, "Sainte-Beuve was a clever man with the temper of a turkey!" In his last years, he was an acute sufferer and lived much in retirement.
One of Sainte-Beuve's critical contentions was that, in order to understand an artist and his work, it was necessary to understand that artist's biography. Marcel Proust took issue with this notion and refuted it in a set of essays, Contre Sainte-Beuve ("Against Sainte-Beuve"). Proust developed the ideas first voiced in those essays in À la recherche du temps perdu.
He was born in Boulogne, educated there, and studied medicine at the Collège Charlemagne in Paris (1824-27). In 1828, he served in the St. Louis Hospital. Beginning in 1824, he contributed literary articles, the Premier lundis of his collected Works, to the Globe newspaper, and, in 1827, he came, through a review of Victor Hugo's Odes et ballads, into close association with Hugo and the Cénacle, the literary circle that strove to define the ideas of the rising Romanticism and struggle against classical formalism. Sainte-Beuve became friendly with Hugo after publishing a favourable review of the author's work but later had an affair with Hugo's wife, which, naturally enough, led to their estrangement. Curiously, when Sainte-Beuve was made a member of the French Academy in 1845, the ceremonial duty of giving the reception speech fell upon Hugo.
Sainte-Beuve published collections of poems and the partly autobiographical novel Volupté in 1834. His articles and essays were collected the volumes Port-Royal and Portraits littéraires.
During the turmoil of 1848 in Europe, he lectured at Liège on Chateaubriand et son groupe littéraire. He returned to Paris in 1849 and began his series of topical columns, Causeries du lundi ('Monday Chats') in the newspaper, Le Constitutionnel. When Louis Napoleon became Emperor, he made Sainte-Beuve professor of Latin poetry at the Collège de France, but anti-Imperialist students hissed him, and he resigned.
After several books of poetry and a couple of failed novels, Sainte-Beuve began to undertake literary research, of which the most important is Port-Royal. He continued to contribute to La Revue contemporaine.
Port-Royal (1837-1859), probably Sainte-Beuve's masterpiece, is an exhaustive history of the Jansenist abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs. It not only influenced the history of religious belief, i.e., the methodology of such research, but also the philosophy of history and the history of esthetics.
He was made Senator in 1865, in which capacity he distinguished himself by his pleas for freedom of speech and of the press. According to Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly, "Sainte-Beuve was a clever man with the temper of a turkey!" In his last years, he was an acute sufferer and lived much in retirement.
One of Sainte-Beuve's critical contentions was that, in order to understand an artist and his work, it was necessary to understand that artist's biography. Marcel Proust took issue with this notion and refuted it in a set of essays, Contre Sainte-Beuve ("Against Sainte-Beuve"). Proust developed the ideas first voiced in those essays in À la recherche du temps perdu.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 24, 2010
I read this book because Cyril Connolly mentions and quotes Sainte-Beuve in his wonderful The Unquiet Grave. Unfortunately all the quotes therein are in French, so I went looking for an English translation. This book, used, almost 40 years old, and the only one I could find, is limited to his essays and criticism of French writers. I would have preferred otherwise, but all in all it’s not an entirely bad thing. Sainte-Beuve talks about Montaigne, Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Voltaire, Rousseau, Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, Baudelaire, and a couple of French “ladies of society” who ran and/or invented the whole French Salon thing we’ve all heard so much about.
I’ve read and greatly admired most of the authors he mentions and was intrigued enough by his descriptions — almost without exception laudatory — to want to read the others. Since he died in 1869 his writing style is decidedly unmodern — a bit grandiose and lofty might be a good way to describe it — but once you get with the flow you hardly notice. The opening essay, “What Is a Classic?“ pretty much defines what his literary tastes are and from there you’re off to the races, as they say.
The only thing I found odd — “downright silly” might be a better way to describe it — is when he explains his critical method and says that, when evaluating an artist, he always looks at his (these of course are all males) siblings to see what they’re like before he makes any judgments on the artist’s work. This and similar just plain weird pronouncements, coming as they do at the very end of the book, give one pause, to say the least. The translators imply that Sainte-Beuve wasn’t being serious when he wrote these things, but the tone of utter gravity with which he makes his other statements can’t help but make you wonder.
Yet I imagine it’s the result that counts, whatever way you manage to arrive at it, so however distasteful or even insane this might seem to our current sensibilities it’s probably beside the point.
Definitely worth reading. The fours stars are only because of the limited selection of authors, which is the fault of the translators, not Sainte-Beuve himself.
I’ve read and greatly admired most of the authors he mentions and was intrigued enough by his descriptions — almost without exception laudatory — to want to read the others. Since he died in 1869 his writing style is decidedly unmodern — a bit grandiose and lofty might be a good way to describe it — but once you get with the flow you hardly notice. The opening essay, “What Is a Classic?“ pretty much defines what his literary tastes are and from there you’re off to the races, as they say.
The only thing I found odd — “downright silly” might be a better way to describe it — is when he explains his critical method and says that, when evaluating an artist, he always looks at his (these of course are all males) siblings to see what they’re like before he makes any judgments on the artist’s work. This and similar just plain weird pronouncements, coming as they do at the very end of the book, give one pause, to say the least. The translators imply that Sainte-Beuve wasn’t being serious when he wrote these things, but the tone of utter gravity with which he makes his other statements can’t help but make you wonder.
Yet I imagine it’s the result that counts, whatever way you manage to arrive at it, so however distasteful or even insane this might seem to our current sensibilities it’s probably beside the point.
Definitely worth reading. The fours stars are only because of the limited selection of authors, which is the fault of the translators, not Sainte-Beuve himself.
Displaying 1 of 1 review