Jean Grenier
Encyclopedia
Jean Grenier was a French philosopher and writer. He taught for a time in Algiers
, where he became a significant influence on the young Albert Camus
.
, the birthplace of Jules Lequier
, the visionary philosopher to whom Grenier would eventually dedicate his doctoral thesis. These early years, during which he became acquainted with Louis Guilloux
, Edmond Lambert and Max Jacob
, are documented in his autobiographical novel Les grèves (1957). In 1922 Grenier gained a teaching qualification in philosophy and began his academic career at the Institut français in Naples
, alongside Henri Bosco
. He then spent some time working on the literary journal La Nouvelle Revue française (NRF) before returning to teaching as a professor of philosophy in Algiers
, the capital of Algeria
. Albert Camus
became a student of Grenier's and a close friendship developed between them. Strongly influenced by Les Îles which came out in 1933, Camus dedicated his first book to Grenier: L'envers et l'endroit, published in Algeria by Edmond Charlot. His L'homme révolté was also dedicated to Grenier, and Camus provided the preface to the second edition of Les Îles in 1959.
However, the two thinkers followed very different ideological paths. While Camus was drawn to revolution and ultimately the desperate cries of La Chute, Grenier was more contemplative, adopting the Taoist principle of Wou-Wei (non-action) and surreptitiously practising a quietist version of Christianity.
Grenier's 1938 Essai sur l'esprit d'orthodoxie is essentially a distillation of his writings from 1936 and 1937. Although it tackles the burning issues of the day, it was intended to be “a reaction against them”. This essay gave rise to a generation of intellectuals divided by their attitudes towards Communism.
Grenier was well-known in the intellectual circles of the time and contributed to numerous literary journals, including L'Œil
, XXe Siècle and Preuves. A friend of Jean Paulhan
, he frequently wrote for the NRF. Grenier had an arts column in the newspaper Combat while Camus was Editor, and one in L'Express
under Jean Daniel
. Following a period of teaching in Alexandria and Cairo (where he met André Gide
, Edmond Jabès
, Jean Cocteau
, Taha Hussein, Étiemble
and Georges Perros
) as well as teaching at the Faculty of Arts in Lille
, Grenier held a chair in aesthetics
and science of art at the Sorbonne
from 1962 to 1968.
Jean Grenier was particularly interested in the development of non-figurative art and wrote mainly on the subject of contemporary painting, including works such as: L'esprit de la peinture contemporaine, Essais sur la peinture contemporaine and Entretiens avec dix-sept peintres non-figuratifs. A summary of his reflections on the history of aesthetics, written for his students at the Sorbonne, may be found in L'art et ses problèmes.
Until his death in 1971, Grenier regularly published works dealing with a wide range of philosophical questions, among them: Le choix, Entretiens sur le bon usage de la liberté, L'esprit du Tao and L'existence malheureuse. Somewhat more mundane topics included: Sur la mort d'un chien and La vie quotidienne. He filled notebooks with details of his relationships with Francine Camus, René Char
, Louis Guilloux
, Jean Giorno, André Malraux
and Manès Sperber
and with the editorial team of the Nouvelle Nouvelle Revue française, as well as his conversations with numerous contemporary artists who visited him at his home in Bourg-la-Reine
. Towards the end, he also wrote down some surprising definitions of technical terms and made some rather whimsical observations. In November 1968, just after the publication of Albert Camus – souvenirs, Grenier was awarded the Grand Prix national des lettres.
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
, where he became a significant influence on the young Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
.
Biography
Jean Grenier spent his childhood and adolescence in Saint-Breuc, BrittanyBrittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
, the birthplace of Jules Lequier
Jules Lequier
Jules Lequier was a French philosopher from Brittany. He wrote in favour of dynamic divine omniscience, wherein God's knowledge of the future is one of possibilities rather than actualities...
, the visionary philosopher to whom Grenier would eventually dedicate his doctoral thesis. These early years, during which he became acquainted with Louis Guilloux
Louis Guilloux
Louis Guilloux was a French writer born in Saint-Brieuc, Brittany, where he lived throughout his life. He is known for his Social Realist novels describing working class life and political struggles in the mid-twentieth century...
, Edmond Lambert and Max Jacob
Max Jacob
Max Jacob was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic.-Life and career:After spending his childhood in Quimper, Brittany, France, he enrolled in the Paris Colonial School, which he left in 1897 for an artistic career...
, are documented in his autobiographical novel Les grèves (1957). In 1922 Grenier gained a teaching qualification in philosophy and began his academic career at the Institut français in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, alongside Henri Bosco
Henri Bosco
Henri Bosco was a French writer.Bosco was born in Avignon, Vaucluse into a family of Piedmontese origin. Through his father, he was related to Saint John Bosco, of whom he wrote a biography. His novels for adults and children provide a sensitive evocation of Provençal life...
. He then spent some time working on the literary journal La Nouvelle Revue française (NRF) before returning to teaching as a professor of philosophy in Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
, the capital of Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
. Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
became a student of Grenier's and a close friendship developed between them. Strongly influenced by Les Îles which came out in 1933, Camus dedicated his first book to Grenier: L'envers et l'endroit, published in Algeria by Edmond Charlot. His L'homme révolté was also dedicated to Grenier, and Camus provided the preface to the second edition of Les Îles in 1959.
However, the two thinkers followed very different ideological paths. While Camus was drawn to revolution and ultimately the desperate cries of La Chute, Grenier was more contemplative, adopting the Taoist principle of Wou-Wei (non-action) and surreptitiously practising a quietist version of Christianity.
Grenier's 1938 Essai sur l'esprit d'orthodoxie is essentially a distillation of his writings from 1936 and 1937. Although it tackles the burning issues of the day, it was intended to be “a reaction against them”. This essay gave rise to a generation of intellectuals divided by their attitudes towards Communism.
Grenier was well-known in the intellectual circles of the time and contributed to numerous literary journals, including L'Œil
L'ŒIL
L'ŒIL is a French magazine created by Rosamond Bernier and her second husband, Georges Bernier, in 1955 to celebrate and reflect contemporary art creation.-External links:**...
, XXe Siècle and Preuves. A friend of Jean Paulhan
Jean Paulhan
Jean Paulhan was a French writer, literary critic and publisher, director of the literary magazine Nouvelle Revue Française from 1925 to 1940 and from 1946 to 1968. He was a member of the Académie Française...
, he frequently wrote for the NRF. Grenier had an arts column in the newspaper Combat while Camus was Editor, and one in L'Express
L'Express (France)
L'Express is a French weekly news magazine. When founded in 1953 during the First Indochina War, it was modelled on the US magazine TIME.-History:...
under Jean Daniel
Jean Daniel
Jean Daniel, is an Algerian-born French-Jewish journalist and author. He is the founder and executive editor of Le Nouvel Observateur weekly.Daniel is a Jewish humanist in the venerable tradition of the French Left...
. Following a period of teaching in Alexandria and Cairo (where he met André Gide
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
, Edmond Jabès
Edmond Jabes
----Edmond Jabès was a Jewish writer and poet, and one of the best known literary figures to write in French after World War II.- Life :...
, Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, Taha Hussein, Étiemble
Étiemble
Étiemble , born 26 January 1909, Mayenne, died 7 January 2002, Vigny) was an essayist, scholar, novelist, and promoter of Middle Eastern and Asian cultures...
and Georges Perros
Georges Perros
Georges Perros was a French writer.He was awarded the Prix Littéraire Valery Larbaud in 1973....
) as well as teaching at the Faculty of Arts in Lille
Lille
Lille is a city in northern France . It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...
, Grenier held a chair in aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
and science of art at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
from 1962 to 1968.
Jean Grenier was particularly interested in the development of non-figurative art and wrote mainly on the subject of contemporary painting, including works such as: L'esprit de la peinture contemporaine, Essais sur la peinture contemporaine and Entretiens avec dix-sept peintres non-figuratifs. A summary of his reflections on the history of aesthetics, written for his students at the Sorbonne, may be found in L'art et ses problèmes.
Until his death in 1971, Grenier regularly published works dealing with a wide range of philosophical questions, among them: Le choix, Entretiens sur le bon usage de la liberté, L'esprit du Tao and L'existence malheureuse. Somewhat more mundane topics included: Sur la mort d'un chien and La vie quotidienne. He filled notebooks with details of his relationships with Francine Camus, René Char
René Char
René Char was a 20th century French poet.-Biography:Char was born in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in the Vaucluse department of France, the youngest of four children of Emile Char and Marie-Therese Rouget, where his father was mayor and managing director of the Vaucluse plasterworks...
, Louis Guilloux
Louis Guilloux
Louis Guilloux was a French writer born in Saint-Brieuc, Brittany, where he lived throughout his life. He is known for his Social Realist novels describing working class life and political struggles in the mid-twentieth century...
, Jean Giorno, André Malraux
André Malraux
André Malraux DSO was a French adventurer, award-winning author, and statesman. Having traveled extensively in Indochina and China, Malraux was noted especially for his novel entitled La Condition Humaine , which won the Prix Goncourt...
and Manès Sperber
Manès Sperber
Manès Sperber was an Austrian-French novelist, essayist and psychologist. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Jan Heger and N.A. Menlos....
and with the editorial team of the Nouvelle Nouvelle Revue française, as well as his conversations with numerous contemporary artists who visited him at his home in Bourg-la-Reine
Bourg-la-Reine
Bourg-la-Reine is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. The inhabitants are called Réginaburgiens. The town is twinned with Kenilworth, UK.-History:...
. Towards the end, he also wrote down some surprising definitions of technical terms and made some rather whimsical observations. In November 1968, just after the publication of Albert Camus – souvenirs, Grenier was awarded the Grand Prix national des lettres.
Published works
- Interiora rerum, Grasset, Collection: Les Cahiers verts, 70, 1927
- Cum apparuerit, Collection: Terrasses de Lourmarin 19, Audin, 1930
- Les Îles, Collection: "Les Essais" n°7, Gallimard, 1933 Reprinted under the title: "L'imaginaire", 1977
- La philosophie de Jules Lequier, Vrin, 1936
- Santa Cruz et autres paysages africains, Collection: Méditerranéennes 4, Charlot, 1937
- Essai sur l'esprit d'orthodoxie, Gallimard, Les Essais n°5, 1938
- Le Choix, Presses Universitaires de France, 1941
- L’Existence, Gallimard, Collection: La Métaphysique, 1945
- Sextus Empiricus (translation) Aubier, 1948
- Entretiens sur le bon usage de la liberté, Paris, Gallimard, 1948
- L'esprit de la peinture contemporaine, Vineta, 1951
- Œuvres complètes de Jules Lequier (presentation), La Baconnière, 1952
- Lexique, Gallimard, Collection: Métamorphoses n°48, 1955
- A propos de l'humain, Gallimard, Collection: Les Essais n°74, 1955
- Les Grèves, Gallimard, 1957
- Sur la mort d'un chien, Gallimard, 1957
- L'esprit du Tao, Flammarion, 1957
- L'existence malheureuse, Gallimard, 1957
- Essais sur la peinture contemporaine, Gallimard, 1959
- Lanskoy, Hazan, Collection: Peintres d'aujourd'hui, 1960
- Absolu et choix, Presses Universitaires de France (Introduction to philosophy), 1961
- Borès, Verve, 1961
- Lettres d'Égypte followed by Un Été au Liban, Gallimard, 1962
- L'Imitation et les principes de l'esthétique classique, C.D.U.(The Sorbonne Lectures: Esthétique), 1963
- Entretiens avec dix-sept peintres non figuratifs, Calmann-Lévy, 1963, Reprinted by Editions Folle Avoine, 1990
- Vicissitudes de l'esthétique et révolution du goût, C.D.U.(The Sorbonne Lectures: Esthétique), 1965
- Célébration du miroir, Robert Morel, 1965
- La vie quotidienne, Gallimard, 1968
- Jules Lequier – La dernière page, Illustrated by Ubac, Gaston Puel, 1968
- Albert Camus – Souvenirs, Gallimard, 1968
- Senancour: les plus belles pages (presentation), Mercure de France, 1968
- Lexique, illustrated by Hadju, Fata Morgana,Fata Morgana, 1969
- Entretiens avec Louis Foucher, Gallimard, 1969
- Quatre prières, illustrated Madeleine Grenier, Gaston Puel, 1970
- L'art et ses problèmes, Éditions Rencontres, 1970
- Quatre prières, Illustrated by Madeleine Grenier, Gaston Puel, 1970
- Music, Le Musée de Poche, 1970
- Molinos: le guide spirituel (presentation), Fayard, 1970
- Mémoires intimes de X, Robert Morel, 1971
- Voir Naples, Gallimard, 1973
- Les poèmes brûlés, Nane Stern, 1973
- Réflexions sur quelques écrivains, Gallimard, 1973
- Jacques, Calligrammes, 1979
- Portrait de Jean Giono, Robert Morel, 1979
- Miroirs, illustrated by Arpad Szenes, Fata Morgana, 1980
- Jean Grenier – Georges Perros : correspondance 1950–1971, Calligrammes, 1980
- Correspondance avec Albert Camus (1932–1960), Gallimard, 1981
- Écrire et publier, Calligrammes, 1982
- Vie de Saint-Gens, followed by images by Saint-Gens par André de Richaud, Calligrammes, 1983
- Prières, illustrated by Zoran Music, Fata Morgana, 1983
- Le chant du voleur d'amour by Bilhana (presentation), Calligrammes, 1983
- Écrits sur le quiétisme, Calligrammes, 1984
- Jean Grenier – Jean Paulhan : correspondance 1925–1968, Calligrammes, 1984
- Premier voyage en Italie – 1921, Calligrammes, 1986
- Ombre et lumière, illustrated by Pierre Tal Coat, Fata Morgana, 1986
- Mes candidatures à la Sorbonne, Calligrammes, 1987
- Les A-peu-près, Ramsay, 1987
- La dernière page, preface by Jean Clair, Ramsay, 1987
- Mes candidatures à la Sorbonne, Calligrammes, 1987
- Jean Grenier – René Etiemble : correspondance 1945–1971, Folle Avoine, 1988
- Carnets 1944 – 1971, collection "Pour Mémoire", Seghers, 1991 (reprinted by les Éditions Claire Paulhan, 1999)
- Sur l’Inde, foreword by Olivier Germain-Thomas, Fata Morgana, 1994
- Sous l'occupation, Editions Claire Paulhan, 1997
External links
- Les chemins maritimes de Jean Grenier
- Actes du colloque de Cerisy sur Jean Grenier (1991)
- Le chemin des sources, présentation de J. Grenier par Tanguy Dohollau
- Citations de Jean Grenier