Pierre Lasserre

Pierre Lasserre (31 May 1867 – 7 November 1930) was a French literary critic, journalist and essayist. He became Director of the École des Hautes-Études.

He was an agrégé in philosophy, contemporary with Henri Vaugeois and Louis Dimier. As a young man he was a strong nationalist and anti-Dreyfusard. He was the leading literary critic of Action française and the author of the first work on Charles Maurras. Along with Georges Valois, Lasserre was one of the first to work to incorporate Nietzschean themes into neoroyalism.

Life

Lasserre defended neo-classicism against romanticism, which he tied to the ideals of the French Revolution. He upheld a controversial thesis on this topic in 1907, on French Romanticism, at the University of Paris. Part of his general argument, that the French romantics had damaged the concept of monarchy, was influenced from the side of the Action Française and Maurras. That strand of anti-romanticism, close to that of the essayist Ernest Seillière and the counterrevolutionary tradition, later affected Carl Schmitt and his Politische Romantik of 1921.

Up to World War I, Lasserre was a militant, associating with Charles Péguy and digesting the ideas of Georges Sorel. He opposed the trend of modernisation in the university system, supporting classical and humane studies. His colleagues Henri Massis and Alfred de Tarde were concerned also at the perceived falling away of classics at the Sorbonne.

In 1914, Lasserre broke with Maurras and the Action française. Others in the circle had made much of a crude form of his arguments on romanticism: Louis Reynaud had claimed German romanticism was corrupting of contemporary French culture, and Lasserre was Germanophile and not a subscriber to the nationalist line of the Action française.

He subsequently followed an orthodox academic career.

Works

• La Crise Chrétienne. Questions d'aujourd'hui (1891)
• Pages Choisies de Goethe (1901)
• La Morale de Nietzsche (1902)
• Charles Maurras et la Renaissance Classique (1902)
• Le Romantisme français. Essai sur la Révolution dans les Sentiments et dans les Idées au XIXe Siècle (1907)
• Les Idées de Nietzsche sur la Musique (1907)
• M. Alfred Croiset, Historien de la Démocratie Athénienne (1909)
• Henri de Sauvelade (1909; novel)
• La Doctrine Officielle de l'Université (1912; with René de Marans)
• Le Crime de Biodos (1912)
• Portraits et Discussions (1914)
• Le Germanisme et l'Esprit Humain (1915)
• L'Esprit de la Musique Française (1917)
• Frédéric Mistral: Poète, Moraliste, Citoyen (1918)
• Les Chapelles Littéraires: Claudel, Jammes, Péguy (1920)
• Cinquante ans de Pensée Française (1921)
• La Philosophie du Goût Musical (1922)
• Renan et Nous (1923)
• Mes routes (1924)
• La Jeunesse d'Ernest Renan. Histoire de la crise religieuse au XIXe siècle (1925-1932)
• Le Secret d'Abélard (1927)
• La Statue Volée. Méditations (1927)
• Des Romantiques à Nous (1927)
• Georges Sorel. Théoricien de l'Impérialisme: ses Idées, son Action (1929)
• Faust en France et Autres Études (1929)
• Trente Années de Vie Littéraire: Pages Choisies (1929; preface by André Bellessort)
• Un Conflit Religieux au XIIe Siècle. Abélard Contre saint Bernard (1930)
• Mise au Point (1931)
• Lourdes (1933)

Works in English translation

• "Germanism and the Human Mind: The Question," The New Age, Vol. XIX, No. 22 (1916)
• "Germanism and the Human Mind: Some German Accessible to European Mind," The New Age, Vol. XIX, No. 23 (1916)
• "Germanism and the Human Mind: A Characteristic of German Philosophy," The New Age, Vol. XIX, No. 24 (1916)
• "Germanism and the Human Mind: The Position of Kantism," The New Age, Vol. XIX, No. 25 (1916)
• "Germanism and the Human Mind: Subjective Idealism," The New Age, Vol. XIX, No. 26 (1916)
• The Spirit of French Music, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. (1921)

External links

• Works by Pierre Lasserre at Hathi Trust
• Alain Raison, "Pierre Lasserre. Le Romantisme Français", Action française 2000, 2005.