Jean Grenier

Jean Grenier ( born February 6, 1898 in Paris, † March 5, 1971 in Dreux - Venouillet, Eure- et- Loir ) was a French writer, philosopher and art critic. The social commitment - as it represented about his student Albert Camus - he preferred the contemplation. In Germany he is largely unknown in spite of the publication of his prose band The Islands by Suhrkamp Verlag ( 1985).

Life

Growing up in the Brittany town of Saint -Brieuc, Grenier completed his studies in philosophy, 1922 in Paris. His friends included Louis Guilloux ( a native ), Henri Bosco, Edmond Lambert, Max Jacob and soon Jean Paulhan, is writing in his old age for his magazine Nouvelle Revue Française Grenier. This youth was reflected in 1927 in Les grèves resist containing various considerations and portraits alongside narrative fragments. For Kindler's New Glossary literature it is Grenier's most ambitious work.

Renunciation

With a longer teaching period in Algiers (1930-1938) philosophy teacher was attentive to his pupil Albert Camus, with whom he will connect 1960 friendship despite different attitudes to life until his accidental death in the year. Camus wrote to Greniers Islands ( 1933), an enthusiastic foreword. According to Camus ' statements, he began under the influence of this book with his own writing. While the students, however, went to revolutionary course, Grenier preferred life self-reflection and endurance in the spirit of Taoism and thus more of a departure from the historical transmission. This " programmatic " is found concentrated in Grenier's Essai sur l' esprit d' orthodoxy of 1938. Lights you also evident from his book sous l' occupation with observations and portraits from the period of occupation, the (1997) appear posthumously. He did not believe in the efficacy of active resistance, is to read it right at the beginning.

In Camus ' newspaper Combat Grenier denied a column about art and literature. He was particularly interested in the contemporary ( non-representational ) painting, which was reflected in several books. An art historical sum he moved in 1970 in L'art et ses problèmes. He had another column in Jean Daniels L'Express. After teaching at universities in Alexandria, Cairo and Lille Grenier was appointed in 1962 at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he held the chair of aesthetics to 1968. This year he was awarded the Grand Prix National des Lettres. Since 1964, he was also a consultant for the publishing house Gallimard. His friends now also included Camus's widow Francine and the two writers André Malraux and Manès Sperber. End of his life spent Grenier near Paris in Bourg- la -Reine.

On the edge

Grenier did not develop a philosophical system. Castaway ground of his observation and reflection was " his experience of being threatened every existence, his flair for the everywhere lurking Nothing, his feelings, just to be on the edge and approved only at a distance ," as it says in Kindler's new literary lexicon - just only on islands. He do not seek to persuade, seduce; he beg your attention for the Low, for the extraordinary in the meanest, such as the death of a dog ( diary-like records, published in 1957 ).

Works (selection)

  • Les iles, Paris 1933 German The islands, Frankfurt / Main 1985
  • La philosophie de Jules Lesquier, Vrin, 1936
  • Essai sur l' esprit d' orthodoxy, Paris 1938
  • Inspirations méditerranéennes, 1940
  • Le Choix, Presses Universitaires de France, 1941
  • Entretien sur le bon usage de la liberté, Paris 1948
  • L'esprit de la peinture contemporaine, suivi de quelques études sur Braque, Chagall, Lhote, Lausanne 1951
  • A propos de l' humain, Paris 1955
  • Les Greves, Paris 1957
  • L' existence malheureuse, Paris 1957
  • Sur la mort d' un chien, Paris 1957
  • L' esprit du Tao, Flammarion, 1957
  • Essais sur la peinture contemporaine, Paris 1959
  • Albert Camus, souvenirs, Paris 1968
  • L'art et ses problèmes Éditions Rencontres, 1970
  • Carnets, diaries / notes 1944-1971, Paris 1994
  • About India, Berlin 1995
  • Sous l' occupation, eds Claire Paulhan, 1997

Literature (selection )

  • JST Garfitt: The Work and Thought of Jean Grenier, London 1982
  • Jacques André ( eds. ): Les instants Privileges, Jean Grenier, Paris 1992.
  • Toby Garfitt: Jean Grenier: un écrivain et un maître, contribution à l' histoire du Intellectual vingtième siècle, Editions La Part commune, Rennes 2010
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