Henri-Frédéric Amiel

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Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Henry-Frederic Amiel by François Artus.png
Portrait of Amiel by Jean-François Artus
Born 27 September 1821
Geneva, Switzerland
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Geneva, Switzerland
Occupation Philosopher, poet, critic
Nationality Swiss
Period 19th century

Signature

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (27 September 1821 – 11 May 1881) was a Swiss writer and moral philosopher, author of an exceptional diary both in terms of its volume (17,000 pages) and the value and universality of its message.

Biography

Henri-Frédéric Amiel was born in Geneva, the first son of Henri Amiel and Caroline Brandt.[lower-alpha 1] Two family tragedies marked his childhood: the death of his mother (from tuberculosis) when he was just eleven, and, less than two years later, his father's suicide, when he threw himself into the Rhône. Henri-Frédéric, then aged 13, and his two younger sisters, Fanny and Laure, were taken in by their uncle Frédéric Amiel and their aunt Fanchette, already the parents of eleven children. Their stay lasted seven years.

After starting his studies in his hometown, Henri-Frédéric travelled to Switzerland, Italy, France and Belgium. In Germany, he first spent nine months in Heidelberg. Then, from 1844 to 1848, in Berlin, he studied philosophy (under Schelling), psychology (under Friedrich Eduard Beneke), philology and theology. He was one of the first foreigners to take an interest in Schopenhauer's philosophy, which he introduced to his students as early as 1866, but his upbringing and character prevented him from embracing it, making him prefer Krause's philosophy.[1]

In 1849, he returned to Geneva and became Professor of Aesthetics and French Literature at the University of Geneva, thanks to his study Du mouvement littéraire dans la Suisse romande et de son avenir ("On the Literary Movement in French-speaking Switzerland and Its Future"). From 1854 until his death, he retained his chair of philosophy.

Around 1860, he introduced the term "unconscious" into the French and English languages.

Around 1870, Berthe Vadier wrote a notebook of poetry, which she submitted to Amiel. This marked the beginning of a "master and pupil" relationship. Following this meeting, he stayed at the Chappuis boarding house, run by Vadier and her mother, for the last few years of his life, and died there.

In his will, Amiel entrusted Fanny Mercier with his 'diary, correspondence, course notes and manuscripts. Berthe Vadier published a wealth of information in 1886 in a first biographical study of Amiel.

Works

Amiel published several volumes of poetry, historical and philological studies, and philosophical essays influenced by German idealist philosophy. Although modest in volume of output, Amiel's mind was of no inferior quality, and his Journal gained a sympathy that the author had failed to obtain in his life. In addition to the Journal, he wrote studies on Erasmus,[2] Madame de Stael and other writers. His extensive correspondence with Égérie, his muse name for Louise Wyder, was preserved and published in 2004.[3] The most popular work he published during his lifetime was the patriotic-militarist song Roulez, tambours! (1857).

Private Journal

Posterity came to Amiel through his monumental 17,000-page diary (16,847 to be exact), which he kept from 1839 to 1881. It was only after his death that it was discovered. The short extracts published in two volumes in 1883 (only five hundred pages were retained), thanks to the care of Fanny Mercier, a schoolteacher and friend of the diarist, and the critic Edmond Schérer, caused a sensation because of the clarity of the author's thought, the sincerity of his introspection, the accuracy of his details, his discouraged view of existence and his tendency towards self-criticism. Renan once wrote of Amiel: "He speaks of sin, of salvation, of redemption and conversion, as if these things were realities."[4] The Journal influenced writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries not only in Switzerland, but also elsewhere in Europe (e.g. Leo Tolstoy).

The first edition, in two volumes, was published in 1883–1884 with the title Fragments d'un Journal intime. It was translated into English by British writer Mary Augusta Ward at the suggestion of academic Mark Pattison.[5]

In 1923, Bernard Bouvier published a new expanded selection (1923, three volumes). In this new edition all those intimate statements of conscience that Mercier's heavy hand had suppressed see the light, making the Journal a faithful mirror of its author's spirit and, above all, of the anxieties and intimate travail, disappointment and aspirations of the '48 generation. The Bouvier edition was translated by Van Wyck Brooks and Charles Van Wyck Brooks.[6]

A new volume of confessions was published in 1927 under the title Philine, edited by critic Edmond Jaloux. "Phil." meaning Philine, is the code name under which Amiel conceals Marie Favre, a widow of thirty, the woman he loved most of all.

In 1947, a selection of the journal was translated into Portuguese by the Brazilian philosopher Mário Ferreira dos Santos.[7]

In 1976, Bernard Gagnebin edited a complete critical edition of the diary, published in Lausanne in twelve volumes.

Major publications

  • Berlin au printemps de l’année 1848 (1849)
  • Du mouvement littéraire dans la Suisse romane et de son avenir (1849)
  • Grains de mil (1854)
  • Il penseroso (1858)
  • La Cloche (1860)
  • La Part du rêve (1863)
  • L’Escalade de MDCII (1875)
  • Charles le Téméraire (1876; historical novel about Charles the Bold)
  • Les Étrangères (1876)
  • L’Enseignement supérieur à Genève depuis la fondation de l’Académie depuis le 5 juin 1559 (1878)
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau jugé par les Genevois d’aujourd’hui (1879)
  • Jour à jour (1880)
  • Fragments d’un journal intime (1884, 1887, 1923, 1927)
  • Lettres de jeunesse (1904)
  • Philine (1927)
  • Essais, critiques (1931)

Notes

Footnotes

  1. He was descended from a Huguenot family driven to Switzerland by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

Citations

  1. Frigerio, Fabrizio (1982). "Les notes de cours d'Henri-Frédéric Amiel sur la philosophie de Schopenhauer." In: Zeit der Ernte, Festschrift für Arthur Hübscher. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, pp. 248–60.
  2. Mansfield, Bruce E. (1968). "Erasmus in the Nineteenth Century: The Liberal Tradition," Studies in the Renaissance, Vol. XV, pp. 193–219.
  3. Vannieuwenborgh, Louis; André Leroy (2004). Amiel et ses amies: correspondance 1853-1868. Lausanne: L'Age d'homme.
  4. Huneker, James (1907). "The Pessimist's Progress: J.-K.Huysmans," The North American Review, Vol. CLXXXVI, No. 622, p. 54.
  5. Sanders, Valerie (1996). Eve's Renegades: Victorian Anti-Feminist Women Novelists. New York: St. Martin's Press, p. 37.
  6. Matthew, John (1938). "The New Amiel," The French Review, Vol. XI, No. 6, pp. 487–492.
  7. Ferreira dos Santos, Mário (1947). Diário Intimo. Porto Alegre: Livraria do Globo.

References

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Further reading

External links