Abel Lefranc
Abel Lefranc | |
---|---|
Born | Abel Jules Maurice Lefranc 27 July 1863 Élincourt-Sainte-Marguerite, France |
Died | 24 November 1952 Paris, France | (aged 89)
Occupation | Historian |
Maurice Jules Abel Lefranc (27 July 1863 – 26 November 1952) was a historian of French literature, expert on
Early life
Lefranc was born in Élincourt-Sainte-Marguerite. After studying at the École Nationale des Chartes, where he wrote a thesis on the history and organization of the town of Noyon until the end of the 13th century (1886). He left to study in Leipzig and Berlin (1887), where he prepared a report on the teaching of history in Germany, which he believed to be the most advanced in the world.[1]
Scholarly career
While working with the
In 1904, on the death of Émile Deschanel, Chair of Modern French Literature at the Collège de France, Lefranc successfully competed for the position against Ferdinand Brunetière, who was considered anti-scientific and overly influenced by religious doctrines. Lefranc had already been appointed lecturer at the École pratique des hautes études, of which he became director in 1911. By this time, he was considered as an important historian and philologist, whose work on John Calvin, Marguerite de Navarre and François Rabelais was authoritative.
In 1903 Lefranc founded the Société des Etudes rabelaisiennes and the journal Revue des Etudes rabelaisiennes.[1][2] He believed that Rabelais was a militant anti-Christian atheist, whose nominally comic writings conveyed his philosophy.[3]
Lefranc was elected to the
His works are now largely outdated. They nevertheless helped train a generation of literary historians of the 16th century, who continued his work and applied his methods.
Shakespeare theories
His theories about William Shakespeare were published in 1918 in Sous le masque de William Shakespeare: William Stanley, Vie comte de Derby (2 vol., 1918). Lefranc argued that
Principal publications
- Histoire de la ville de Noyon et de ses institutions jusqu'à la fin du XIIIe siècle (1887)
- La Jeunesse de Calvin (1888)
- Histoire du Collège de France depuis ses origines jusqu'à la fin du premier Empire (1893)
- Les Idées religieuses de Marguerite de Navarre d'après son œuvre poétique Les Marguerites et les Dernières poésies (1898)
- Les Navigations de Pantagruel, études sur la géographie rabelaisienne (1905)
- Les Lettres et les idées depuis la Renaissance (2 vol., 1910–1914)
- Sous le masque de William Shakespeare : William Stanley, Vie comte de Derby (2 vol., 1918)
- La Vie quotidienne au temps de la Renaissance (1938)
- À la découverte de Shakespeare (2 vol., 1945)
Editions
- Marguerite de Navarre: Les Dernières poésies (1896)
- Jean Calvin: Institution de la religion chrestienne (en coll., 2 vol. 1911)
- François Rabelais: Œuvres (en coll., 5 vol. 1913–1931)
- André Chénier: Œuvres inédites (1914)
References
- ^ a b c Marcel Bataillon, Charles Samaran, Raymond Lebègue, Michel François, Fernand Desonay et Christian Fouchet, Hommage à Abel Lefranc (1863–1963). Commémoration du centenaire de sa naissance, Paris, 1964.
- ^ Lafeuille, G. Review of Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, tome 12. Isis, Vol 43 No. 1, pp. 62. [1]
- ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon. "Beyond Babel" in Davis & Hampton, "Rabelais and His Critics". Occasional Papers Series, University of California Press.
- ^ a b Georges Connes, The Shakespeare Mystery, Kessinger Publishing, 2003, p.212-224