Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (; 23 December 1804 – 13 October 1869) was a French literary critic. into close association with Hugo and the Cénacle, the literary circle that strove to define the ideas of the rising Romanticism and struggle against classical formalism. Sainte-Beuve became friendly with Hugo after publishing a favourable review of the author's work but later had an affair with Hugo's wife, Adèle Foucher, which resulted in their estrangement. Curiously, when Sainte-Beuve was made a member of the French Academy in 1845, the ceremonial duty of giving the reception speech fell upon Hugo.

Career

Sainte-Beuve published collections of poems and the partly autobiographical novel Volupté in 1834. His articles and essays were collected the volumes Port-Royal and Portraits littéraires.

thumb|Commemorative plaque, 11 Rue du Montparnasse, Paris

During the rebellions of 1848 in Europe, he lectured at Liège on Chateaubriand and his literary circle. He returned to Paris in 1849 and began his series of topical columns, Causeries du lundi ('Monday Chats') in the newspaper, Le Constitutionnel. When Louis Napoleon became Emperor, he made Sainte-Beuve professor of Latin poetry at the Collège de France, but anti-Imperialist students hissed him, and he resigned.

Sainte-Beuve died in Paris, aged 64.

Publications

Non-fiction

  • Tableau Historique et Critique de la Poésie Française et du Théâtre Français au XVIe Siècle (2 vols., 1828).
  • Port-Royal (5 vols., 1840–1859).
  • Portraits Littéraires (3 vols., 1844; 1876–78).
  • Portraits Contemporains (5 vols., 1846; 1869–71).
  • Portraits de Femmes (1844; 1870).
  • Causeries du Lundi (16 vols., 1851–1881).
  • Nouveaux Lundis (13 vols., 1863–1870).
  • Premiers Lundis (3 vols., 1874–75).
  • Étude sur Virgile (1857).
  • Chateaubriand et son Groupe Littéraire (2 vols., 1860).
  • Le Général Jomini (1869).
  • Madame Desbordes-Valmore (1870).
  • M. de Talleyrand (1870).
  • P.-J. Proudhon (1872).
  • Chroniques Parisiennes (1843–1845 & 1876).
  • Les Cahiers de Sainte-Beuve (1876).
  • Mes Poisons (1926).

Novels

  • Volupté (1834).
  • Madame de Pontivy (1839).
  • Christel (1839).
  • La Pendule (1880).

Short stories

  • Le Clou d’or dedicated to Sophie de Bazancourt, woman of letters and wife of général François Aimé Frédéric Loyré d'Arbouville.
  • De la littérature industrielle, Paris, Allia, 2013, 48p.
  • Portrait de Leopardi (Paris, Allia, 2019, 2nd edition, 80p)

Poetry

  • Vie, Poésies et Pensées de Joseph Delorme (1829).
  • Les Consolations (1830).
  • Pensées d'août (1837).
  • Livre d'Amour (1843).
  • Poésies Complètes (1863).
  • Poésies françaises d'une Italienne (1854) by Agathe-Sophie Sasserno, preface by Sainte-Beuve

In English translation

  • Portraits of Celebrated Women (1868, trans. Harriet W. Preston).
  • Memoirs of Madame Desbordes-Valmore (1873, trans. Harriet W. Preston).
  • English Portraits (1875, a selection from Causeries du Lundi).
  • Monday-chats (1877, trans. William Matthews)
  • Essays on Men and Women (1890, trans. William Matthews and Harriet W. Preston).
  • Essays (1890, trans. Elizabeth Lee).
  • Portraits of Men (1891, trans. Forsyth Edeveain).
  • Portraits of Women (1891, trans. Helen Stott).
  • Select Essays of Sainte-Beuve (1895, trans. Arthur John Butler).
  • The Prince de Ligne (1899, trans. Katharine Prescott Wormeley).
  • The Correspondence of Madame, Princess Palatine (1899, trans. Katharine Prescott Wormeley).
  • The Essays of Sainte-Beuve (1901, ed. William Sharp).
  • Memoirs and Letters of Cardinal de Bernis (1902, trans. Katharine Prescott Wormeley).
  • Causeries du lundi (1909–11, 8 vols., trans. E.J. Trechmann).
  • Selected Essays (1963, trans. & ed. Francis Steegmuller and Norbert Guterman).
  • Volupté: The Sensual Man (1995, trans. Marilyn Gaddis Rose).

References

Citations

Sources

  • Nicolson, Harold George (1957). Sainte-Beuve. London: Constable.
  • Williams, Roger L. (1957). "Sainte-Beuve, Sultan of Literature". In: Gaslight and Shadow: The World of Napoleon III. New York: Macmillan.

Further reading

  • Arnold, Matthew (1910). "Sainte-Beuve." In: Essays in Criticism. Boston: The Ball Publishing Co., pp. 137–152.
  • Babbitt, Irving (1912). The Masters of Modern French Criticism. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, pp. 79–188.
  • Baldick, Robert (1971). Dinner at Magny's. London: Victor Gollancz.
  • Barlow, Norman H. (1964). Sainte-Beuve to Baudelaire: A Poetic Legacy. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
  • Birrell, Augustine (1892). "Sainte-Beuve." In: Res Judicatæ. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 298–308.
  • Calvert, George H. (1875). "Sainte-Beuve, the Critic." In: Essays Æsthetical. Boston: Lee and Shepard, pp. 158–197.
  • Chadbourne, Richard M. (1977). Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve. Boston: Twayne Publishers.
  • Dowden, Edward (1902). "Literary Criticism in France." In: New Studies in Literature. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., pp. 388–418.
  • Compagnon, Antoine (1995). "Sainte-Beuve and the Canon," MLN, Vol. 110, No. 5, French Issue, pp. 1188–1199.
  • Guérard, Albert Léon (1913). "Critics and Historians: Sainte-Beuve, Taine." In: French Prophets of Yesterday. New York: D. Appleton and Company, pp. 201–223.
  • Harper, George McLean (1897). "Sainte-Beuve," Scribner's Magazine, Vol. XXII, No. 5, pp. 594–600.
  • Harper, George McLean (1901). "Sainte-Beuve." In: Masters of French Literature. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 219–275.
  • Harper, George McLean (1909). Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve. Philadelphia and London: J.B. Lippincott Company.
  • James, Henry (1880). "Sainte-Beuve," The North American Review, Vol. CXXX, No. 278, pp. 51–69.
  • Kirk, John Foster (1866). "Sainte-Beuve," The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XVII, No. 102, pp. 432–454.
  • Knickerbocker, William S. (1932). "Sainte-Beuve," The Sewanee Review, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 206–225.
  • Lehmann, A.G. (1962). Sainte-Beuve: A Portrait of the Critic, 1804-1842. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • MacClintock, Lander (1920). Sainte-Beuve's Critical Theory and Practice After 1849. Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press.
  • Marks, Emerson R. (1964). "Sainte-Beuve's Classicism," The French Review, Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 411–418.
  • Mott, Lewis Freeman (1925). Sainte-Beuve. New York: D. Appleton and Company.
  • Mulhauser, Ruth E. (1969). Sainte-Beuve and Greco-Roman Antiquity. Cleveland: Press of Case Western Reserve University.
  • Nelles, Paul (2000). "Sainte-Beuve between Renaissance and Enlightenment," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 61, No. 3, pp. 473–492.
  • Paton, J.B. (1870). "Sainte-Beuve and Renan," The London Quarterly Review, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 457–480.
  • Pollak, Gustav (1914). International Perspective in Criticism. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company.
  • Proust, Marcel (1988). Against Sainte-Beuve and Other Essays. London: Penguin.
  • Smith, Horatio (1942). "Sainte-Beuve on Science and Human Nature: Jouffroy, Le Play, Proudhon," Modern Language Notes, Vol. 57, No. 7, pp. 592–602.
  • Sutcliffe, Emerson Grant (1921). "Sainte-Beuve on Fiction," The South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. XX, pp. 41–51.
  • Switzer, Richard (1960). "Sainte-Beuve and the Ottocento," Italica, Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 109–117.
  • Whitridge, Arnold (1923). "The Personality of Sainte-Beuve," The North American Review, Vol. 217, No. 810, pp. 676–687.
  • Whitridge, Arnold (1938). "Matthew Arnold and Sainte-Beuve," PMLA, Vol. 53, No. 1, pp. 303–313.
  • "Hugo and Sainte-Beuve," The National Quarterly Review, Vol. XX, 1869, pp. 32–52.
  • "M. Sainte-Beuve," The Quarterly Review, Vol. CXIX, 1866, pp. 80–108.
  • "Sainte-Beuve," The Edinburgh Review, Vol. CXXXII, 1870, pp. 126–154.
  • What Is a Classic? at Bartleby.com.