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SENANCOUR, ETIENNE PIVERT DE (177o-,846)

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Originally appearing in Volume V24, Page 634 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SENANCOUR, See also:ETIENNE PIVERT DE (177o-,846) , See also:French author, was See also:born in See also:Paris in See also:November 1770. His See also:father desired him to enter the See also:seminary of See also:Saint-Sulpice preparatory to be-coming a See also:priest, but Senancour, to avoid a profession for which he had no vocation, went on a visit to See also:Switzerland in 1789. At See also:Fribourg he married in 1790 a See also:young Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Daguet, but the See also:marriage was not a happy one. His wife refused to accompany him to the Alpine solitude he desired, and they settled in Fribourg. His See also:absence from See also:France at the outbreak of the Revolution was interpreted as hostility to the new See also:government, and his name was included in the See also:list of emigrants. He visited France from See also:time to time by stealth, but he only succeeded in saving the remnants of a considerable See also:fortune. In 1799 he published in Paris his Reveries sur la nature See also:primitive de I'homme, a See also:book containing impassioned descriptive passages which See also:mark him out as a precursor of the romantic See also:movement. His parents and his wife died before the See also:close of the See also:century, and Senancour was in Paris in 18or when he began Obermann, which was finished in Switzerland two years later, and printed (Paris, 2 vols.) in 1804. This singular book, which has never lost its popularity with a limited class of readers, was followed in the next See also:year by a See also:treatise De l'amour, in which he attacked the accepted social conventions. Obermann, which is to a See also:great extent inspired by See also:Rousseau, was edited and praised successively by Sainte-Beuve and by See also:George See also:Sand, and had a considerable See also:influence both in France and See also:England. It is a See also:series of letters supposed to be written by a solitary and See also:melancholy See also:person, whose headquarters are placed in a lonely valley of the See also:Jura. The See also:idiosyncrasy of the book in the large class of Wertherian-Byronic literature consists in the fact that the See also:hero, in-See also:stead of feeling the vanity of things, recognizes his own inability to be and do what he wishes.

See also:

Professor See also:Brandes has pointed out that while Rene was appreciated by some of the ruling See also:spirits of the century, Obermann was understood only by the highly gifted, sensitive temperaments, usually strangers to success. Senancour was tinged to some extent with the older philosophe See also:form of See also:free-thinking, and had no sympathy with the See also:Catholic reaction. Having no resources but his See also:pen, Senancour was driven to hack-See also:work during the See also:period which elapsed between his return to France (1803) and his See also:death at St See also:Cloud (loth of See also:January 1846); but some of the See also:charm of Obermann is to be found in the Libres Meditations d'un See also:solitaire inconnu. See also:Thiers and See also:Villemain successively obtained for Senancour from See also:Louis Philippe See also:pensions which enabled him to pass his last days in comfort. He wrote See also:late in See also:life a second novel in letters entitled Isabelle (1833). He composed his own See also:epitaph; Eternite, sois mon asile. Senancour is immortalized for See also:English readers in the Obermann of See also:Matthew See also:Arnold. Obermann itself was translated into English, with See also:biographical and See also:critical introduction, by A. G. See also:Waite (1903). See the See also:preface by Sainte-Beuve to his edition (1833, 2 vols.) of Obermann, and two articles Portraits contemporains (vol. i.) ; Un Precurseur and Senancour (1867) by J. Levallois, who received much See also:information from S6nancour's daughter, Eulalie de Senancour, herself a journalist and novelist; and a biographical and critical study Senancour, by J.

Merlant (1907).

End of Article: SENANCOUR, ETIENNE PIVERT DE (177o-,846)

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