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BOURGET, PAUL CHARLES JOSEPH (1852– )

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 332 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BOURGET, See also:PAUL See also:CHARLES See also:JOSEPH (1852– ) , See also:French novelist and critic, was See also:born at See also:Amiens on the 2nd of See also:September 1852. His See also:father, a See also:professor of See also:mathematics, was afterwards appointed to a See also:post in the See also:college at Clermont-See also:Ferrand. Here Bourget received his See also:early See also:education. He afterwards studied at the Lycee See also:Louis-le-See also:Grand and at the Ecole See also:des Hautes Etudes. In 1872–1873 he produced a See also:volume of See also:verse, Au bord de la mer, which was followed by others, the last, See also:Les Aveux, appearing in 1882. Meanwhile he was making a name in See also:literary journalism, and in 1883 he published Essais de psychologie contemporaine, studies of eminent writers first printed in the Nouvelle Revue, and now brought together. In 1884 Bourget paid a See also:long visit to See also:England, and there wrote his first published See also:story (L'Irreparable). Cruelle Enigme followed in 1885; and See also:Andre Cornelis (1886) and Mensonges (1887) were received with much favour. Le See also:Disciple (1889) showed the novelist in a graver attitude; while in 1891 Sensations d'Italie, notes of a tour in that See also:country, revealed a fresh phase of his See also:powers. In the same See also:year appearedthe novel Caur de femme, and Nouveaux Pastels, types of the characters of men, the sequel to a similar See also:gallery of See also:female types (Pastels, 1890). His later novels include La Terre promise (1892); Cosmopolis (1892), a psychological novel, with See also:Rome as a back-ground; Une Idylle tragique (1896); La Duchesse bleue (1897); Le Fanteme (1901); Les Deux Sceurs (1905); and some volumes of shorter stories—Complications sentimentales (1896), the powerful Drames de famille (1898), Un Homme fort (1900), L'Etape (1902), a study of the inability of a See also:family raised too rapidly from the See also:peasant class to adapt itself to new conditions. This powerful study of contemporary See also:manners was followed by Un See also:Divorce (1904), a See also:defence of the See also:Roman See also:Catholic position that divorce is a violation of natural See also:laws, any See also:breach of which inevitably entails disaster.

Etudes et portraits, first published in 1888, contains impressions of Bourget's stay in England and See also:

Ireland, especially reminiscences of the months which he spent at See also:Oxford; and Outre-Mer (1895), a See also:book in two volumes, is his See also:critical See also:journal of a visit to the See also:United States in 1893. He was admitted to the See also:Academy in 1894, and in 1895 was promoted to be an officer of the See also:Legion of See also:Honour, having received the decoration of the See also:order ten years before. As a writer of verse Bourget was merely trying his wings, and his poems, which were collected in t*o volumes (1885–1887), are chiefly interesting for the See also:light which they throw upon his mature method and the later products of his See also:art. It was in See also:criticism that his See also:genius first found its true See also:bent. The See also:habit of See also:close scientific See also:analysis which he derived from his father, the sense of See also:style produced by a See also:fine See also:ear and moulded by a classical education, the innate appreciation of art in all its forms, the See also:taste for seeing men and cities, the keen See also:interest in the See also:oldest not less than the newest civilizations, and the large tolerance not to be learned on the boulevard—all these combined to provide him with a most uncommon equipment for the critic's task. It is not surprising that the Sensations d'Italie (1891), and the various psychological studies, are in their different ways scarcely surpassed throughout the whole range of literature. Bourget's reputation as a novelist has long been assured. Deeply impressed by the singular art of See also:Henry See also:Beyle (Stendhal), he struck out on a new course at a moment when the realist school reigned without See also:challenge in French fiction. His See also:idealism, moreover, had a See also:character of its own. It was constructed on a scientific basis, and aimed at an exactness, different from, yet comparable to, that of the writers who were depicting with an astonishing faithfulness the environment and the actions of a See also:person or-a society. With Bourget observation was mainly directed to the See also:secret springs of human character. At first his purpose seemed to be purely See also:artistic, but when Le Disciple appeared, in 1889, the See also:preface to that remarkable story revealed in him an unsuspected fund of moral See also:enthusiasm.

Since then he has varied between_ his earlier and his later manner, 'alit his See also:

work in See also:general has been more seriously conceived. From first to last he has painted with a most delicate See also:brush the intricate emotions of See also:women, whether wronged, erring or actually vicious; and he has described not less happily the ideas, the passions and the failures of those See also:young men of See also:France to whom he makes See also:special See also:appeal. Bourget has been charged with See also:pessimism, and with undue delineation of one social class. The first See also:charge can hardly be sustained. The See also:lights in his books are usually See also:low; there is a certain lack of gaiety, and the characters move in a See also:world of disenchantment. But there is no despair in his own outlook upon human destiny as a whole. As regards the other See also:indictment, the early stories sometimes dwell to excess on the See also:mere framework of opulence; but the See also:pathology of moral irresolution, of See also:corn-, plicated affairs of the See also:heart, of the ironies of friendship, in which the writer See also:revels, can be more appropriately studied in a cultured and leisured society than amid the simpler surroundings of humbler men and women. The style of all Bourget's writings is singularly graceful. His knowledge of the literature of other lands gives it a greater flexibility and a finer allusiveness than most of his contemporaries can achieve. The precision by which it is not less distinguished, though responsible for a certain over-refinement, and for some dull pages of the novels, is an almost unmixed merit in the critical essays. As a critic, indeed, either of art or letters, Bourget leaves little to be desired. If he is not in the very first See also:rank of novelists, if his books display more ease of finished craftsmanship than joy in spontaneous creation, it must be remembered that the supreme writers of fiction have rarely succeeded as he has in a different See also:field.

See also C. Lecigne, L'See also:

Evolution morale et religieuse de M. Paul Bourget (1903); Sargeret, Les Grands Convertis (1906). His Euvres completes began to appear in a See also:uniform edition in 1899.

End of Article: BOURGET, PAUL CHARLES JOSEPH (1852– )

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