Edgar Quinet
Edgar Quinet (French: [kinɛ]; 17 February 1803 – 27 March 1875) was a French historian and intellectual.
Biography
Early years
Quinet was born at
He was sent to school first in Bourg and then in Lyon. His father wished him on leaving school to go into the army, and then enter a business career. Quinet was determined to engage in literature, and after a time got his way when he moved to Paris in 1820.[1]
His first publication, the Tablettes du juif errant ("Tablets of the Wandering Jew"), which appeared in 1823, symbolized the progress of humanity.[1] He became impressed with German intellectual writing and undertook translating Johann Gottfried Herder's Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit ("Outlines of Philosophy of the History of Man") learnt German for the purpose, and published his work in 1827, and obtained through it considerable credit.
Early writings
At this time he was introduced to Victor Cousin, and made the acquaintance of Jules Michelet. He had visited Germany and the United Kingdom before the appearance of his book. Cousin obtained for him a position on a government mission in Greece, the "Scientific Expedition of Morea", in 1829 (at the end of the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire), and on his return he published in 1830 a book on La Grèce moderne ("Modern Greece").[1] With Michelet he published a volume of works in 1843, denouncing Jesuits and blaming them for religious, political and social troubles. He also became acquainted with and a lover of the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1838. Quinet wrote several lectures praising Emerson's works which were published with the title of Le Christianisme et la Revolution Francaise in 1845.[2]
Hopes of employment that he had after the
Shortly afterwards he married Minna More, a German girl with whom he had fallen in love some years before. Growing disillusioned with German thought because of Prussian aggressive tactics,
Professorship
Quinet's Parisian professorship, which began in 1842, was notorious as the subject of polemics. His chair was that of Southern Literature, but, neglecting his proper subject, he chose, in conjunction with Michelet, to engage in a violent polemic with the Jesuits and with Ultramontanism. Two books bearing exactly these titles appeared in 1843 and 1844, and contained, as was usual with Quinet, the substance of his lectures.[1]
These lectures excited great debate and the author obstinately refused to return to literature strictly construed; consequently, in 1846, the government put an end to the lectures, a measure that was arguably approved by the majority of his colleagues.[1] He was dismissed in 1846 by the Collège de France for his adamant attacks on the Roman Catholic Church, exaltation of the revolution, support for the oppressed nationalities of France and for supporting the theory that religion is a determining force in societies.[citation needed]
1848 Revolution
By this time Quinet was a pronounced republican, and something of a revolutionary. He joined the rioters during the
He had published in 1848 Les Révolutions d'Italie ("The Revolutions of
Exile
Quinet fled Louis Napoléon's 1851 coup d'état to Brussels until 1858 and then fled to Veytaux, Switzerland, until 1870.[1] His wife had died some time previously, and he now married Hermiona Asachi (or Asaky), the daughter of Gheorghe Asachi, a Romanian poet.[citation needed] In Brussels, Quinet lived for some seven years, during which he published Les Esclaves ("The Slaves", 1853), a dramatic poem, Marnix de Sainte-Aldégonde (1854), a study of the Reformer in which he emphasizes Sainte-Aldégonde's literary merit, and some other books.[1]
In Veytaux, his literary output was greater than ever. In 1860, he published a unique volume, partly reflecting the style of Ahasverus, and entitled Merlin l'enchanteur (
Return and final years
Quinet had refused to return to France to join the
Le Siège de Paris et la défense nationale ("The Siege of Paris and the National Defence") appeared in 1871, La République ("The Republic") in 1872, Le Livre de l'exilé ("The Book of Exile") in the year of its author's death and after it. This was followed by three volumes of letters and some other work. Quinet had already in 1858 published a semi-autobiographical book called Histoire de mes idées ("History of My Ideas").[1]
Personality
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition:
His character was extremely amiable, and his letters to his mother, his accounts of his early life, and so forth, are likely always to make him interesting. He was also a man of great moral conscientiousness, and as far as intention went perfectly disinterested. As a writer, his chief fault is want of concentration; as a thinker and politician, vagueness and want of practical determination. His historical and philosophical works, though showing much reading, fertile thought, abundant facility of expression, and occasionally, where prejudice does not come in, acute judgment, are rather (as not a few of them were in fact) reported lectures than formal treatises. His rhetorical power was altogether superior to his logical power, and the natural consequence is that his work is full of contradictions. These contradictions were, moreover, due, not merely to an incapacity or an unwillingness to argue strictly, but also to the presence in his mind of a large number of inconsistent tastes and prejudices which he either could not or would not co-ordinate into an intelligible creed. Thus he has the strongest attraction for the picturesque side of
positive orthodoxy, yet when a man like Strausspushed unorthodoxy to its extreme limits Quinet revolted. As a politician he acted with the extreme radicals, yet universal suffrage disgusted him as unreasonable in its principle and dangerous in its results. His pervading characteristic, therefore, is that of an eloquent vagueness, very stimulating and touching at times, but as deficient in coercive force of matter as it is in lasting precision and elegance of form. He is less inaccurate in fact than Michelet, but he is also much less absorbed by a single idea at a time, and the result is that he seldom attains to the vivid representation of which Michelet was a master.[4]
Early editions
His numerous works appeared in a uniform edition of twenty-eight volumes (1877–79). His second wife, in 1870, published certain Mémoires d'exil, and Lettres d'exil followed in 1885. In that year Prof. George Saintsbury published a selection of the Lettres à ma mère (Letters to My Mother) with an introduction.
English translations published in the United States
- Ahashuerus translated by ISBN 978-1612272146
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Saintsbury 1911, p. 755.
- ^ Chazin, Maurice (March 1933), "Quinet an Early Discoverer of Emerson", PMLA 48, 1: 147–163
- ^ Barzun, Jaques (October 1974), "Romantic Historiography as a Political Force in France", Journal of the History of Ideas 12, 3: 318–329
- ^ Saintsbury 1911, pp. 755–756.
- public domain: Saintsbury, George (1911). "Quinet, Edgar". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 755–756. This, in turn, gives the following references:
- Libres Penseurs religieux (E. Paris, 1905)
- Richard Heath, Early Life and Writings of Edgar Quinet (London, 1881)
- Jérôme Alexander Sillem (1840–1912), "Edgar Quinet, geschiedschrijver en staatkundige" (Published in the Dutch magazine: "De Gids", 1869)
- Eugène Ledrain, A l'occasion du centenaire (1903)
- Hermione Quinet-Asachi, Cinquante ans d'amitié
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
External links
- Media related to Edgar Quinet at Wikimedia Commons
- Works by Edgar Quinet at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Edgar Quinet at Internet Archive