Background
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was born on April 21, 1828 in Vouziers, France.
(Excerpt from The French Revolution, Vol. 2 In this volum...)
Excerpt from The French Revolution, Vol. 2 In this volume, as in those preceding it and in those to come, there will be found only the history of Public Powers. Other historians will write that of diplomacy, of war, of the finances, of the Church: my subject is a limited one. To my great regret, however, this new part fills an entire volume; and the last part, on the revolutionary government, will be as long. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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(This, my dear Marcelin, is a trip to the Pyrenees; I have...)
This, my dear Marcelin, is a trip to the Pyrenees; I have been there, and that is a praiseworthy circumstance; many writers, including some of the longest-winded, have described these scenes without leaving home. And yet I have serious shortcomings to confess, and am deeply humbled thereat. I have not been the first to scale any inaccessible mountain; I have broken neither leg nor arm; I have not been eaten by the bears; I have neither saved any English heiress from being swept away by the Gave, nor yet have I married one; I have not been present at a single duel; my experiences include no tragic encounter with brigands or smugglers. I have walked much, and talked a little, and now I recount the pleasures of my eyes and ears. What sort of a man can he be who comes home from a long absence bringing all his limbs with him, is not the least in the world a hero, and yet does not blush to confess it? In this book I have talked as if with thee. There is a Marcelin whom the public knows, a shrewd critic, a caustic wit, the lover and delineator of every worldly elegance; there is another Marcelin, known to but three or four, a learned and thoughtful man. If there are any good ideas in this work, half of them belong to him; to him, then, I restore them. H. TAINE. CHAPTER I. BORDEAUX.ROYAN. I. The river is so fine, that before going to Bayonne I have come down as far as Royan. Ships heavy with white sails ascend slowly on both sides of the boat. At each gust of wind they incline like idle birds, lifting their long wing and showing their black belly. They run slantwise, then come back; one would say that they felt the better for being in this great fresh-water harbor; they loiter in it and enjoy its peace after leaving the wrath and inclemency of the ocean. The banks, fringed with pale verdure, glide right and left, far away to the verge of heaven; the river is broad like a sea; at this distance you might think you saw two hedges; the trees dimly lift their delicate shapes in a robe of bluish gauze; here and there great pines raise their umbrellas on the vapory horizon, where all is confused and vanishing; there is an inexpressible sweetness in these first hues of the timid day, softened still by the fog which exhales from the deep river. As for the river itself, its waters stretch out joyous and splendid; the rising sun pours upon its breast a long streamlet of gold; the breeze covers it with scales; its eddies stretch themselves, and tremble like an awaking serpent, and, when the billow heaves them, you seem to see the striped flanks, the taw-ney cuirass of a leviathan. Indeed, at such moments it seems that the water must live and feel; it has a strange look, when it comes, transparent and sombre, to stretch itself upon a beach of pebbles; it turns about them as if uneasy and irritated; it beats them with its wavelets; it covers them, then retires, then comes back again with a sort of languid writhing and mysterious lovingness; its snaky eddies, its little crests suddenly beaten down or broken, its wave, sloping, shining, then all at once blackened, resembles the flashes of passion in an impatient mother, who hovers incessantly and anxiously about her children, and covers them, not knowing what she wants and what fears. Presently a cloud has covered the heavens, and the wind has risen. CONTENTS BOOK I. THE COAST. I. BORDEAUX.ROYAN. II. LES LANDES.BAYONNE. III. BIARRITZ.SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ. BOOK II. THE VALLEY OF OSSA I. DAX.ORTHEZ. II. PAU. III. EAUX BONNES. IV. LANDSCAPES. V. EAUX-CHAUDE S. VI. THE INHABITANTS. BOOK III. THE VALLEY OF LUZ. I. ON THE WAY TO LUZ. II. LUZ. III. SAUVT-SAUVEUR.BARÉGES. IV. CAUTERETS. V. SAINT-SAVIN. VI. GAVARNIE. VII. THE BERGONZ.THE PIC DU MIDI. VIII. PLANTS AND ANIMALS. BOOK IV. BAGNE RES AND LUCHON. I. FROM LUZ TO BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE. II. BAGNÈRES-DE-BIGORRE. III. THE PEOPLE. IV. THE ROAD TO BAGNÈRES-DE-LUCHON. V. LUCHON. VI. TOULOUSE.
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(Lorsque vous tournez les grandes pages roides d'un in-fol...)
Lorsque vous tournez les grandes pages roides d'un in-folio, les feuilles jaunies d'un manuscrit, bref un poëme, un code, un symbole de foi, quelle est votre première remarque? C'est qu'il ne s'est point fait tout seul. Il n'est qu'un moule pareil à une coquille fossile, une empreinte, pareille à l'une de ces formes déposées dans la pierre par un animal qui a vécu et qui a péri. Sous la coquille, il y avait un animal, et sous le document il y avait un homme. Pourquoi étudiez-vous la coquille, sinon pour vous figurer l'animal? De la même façon vous n'étudiez le document qu'afin de connaître l'homme; la coquille et le document sont des débris morts, et ne valent que comme indices de l'être entier et vivant. C'est jusqu'à cet être qu'il faut arriver; c'est lui qu'il faut tâcher de reconstruire. On se trompe lorsqu'on étudie le document comme s'il était seul. C'est traiter les choses en simple érudit, et tomber dans une illusion de bibliothèque. Au fond il n'y a ni mythologie, ni langues, mais seulement des hommes qui arrangent des mots et des images d'après les besoins de leurs organes et la forme originelle de leur esprit. Un dogme n'est rien par lui-même; voyez les gens qui l'ont fait, tel portrait du seizième siècle, la roide et énergique figure d'un archevêque ou d'un martyr anglais. Rien n'existe que par l'individu; c'est l'individu lui-même qu'il faut connaître. Quand on a établi la filiation des dogmes, ou la classification des poëmes, ou le progrès des constitutions, ou la transformation des idiomes, on n'a fait que déblayer le terrain; la véritable histoire s'élève seulement quand l'historien commence à démêler, à travers la distance des temps, l'homme vivant, agissant, doué de passions, muni d'habitudes, avec sa voix et sa physionomie, avec ses gestes et ses habits, distinct et complet comme celui que tout à l'heure nous avons quitté dans la rue. Tâchons donc de supprimer, autant que possible, ce grand intervalle de temps qui nous empêche d'observer l'homme avec nos yeux, avec les yeux de notre tête. Qu'y a-t-il sous les jolis feuillets satinés d'un poëme moderne? Un poëte moderne, un homme comme Alfred de Musset, Hugo, Lamartine ou Heine, ayant fait ses classes et voyagé, avec un habit noir et des gants, bien vu des dames et faisant le soir cinquante saluts et une vingtaine de bons mots dans le monde, lisant les journaux le matin, ordinairement logé dans un second étage, point trop gai parce qu'il a des nerfs, surtout parce que, dans cette épaisse démocratie où nous étouffons, le discrédit des dignités officielles a exagéré ses prétentions en rehaussant son importance, et que la finesse de ses sensations habituelles lui donne quelque envie de se croire Dieu. Voilà ce que nous apercevons sous des méditations ou des sonnets modernes.
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(Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828-1893) was a French critic a...)
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828-1893) was a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism, and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism.
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Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was born on April 21, 1828 in Vouziers, France.
He attended the College Bourbon and the École Normale in Paris. In 1848 he accordingly took both his baccalaureat degrees, in science and letters.
Taine was at the College Bourbon that he formed lifelong friendships with several of his schoolfellows who afterwards were to exercise a lasting influence upon him: among these were Prevost-Paradol, for many years his most intimate friend; Planat, and Cornelis de Witt, who introduced him to Guizot when the latter returned from England in 1846.
Taine's reputation had already spread beyond the college.
The fact was that his examiners sincerely considered his ideas to be absurd, his style and method of handling a subject dry and tiresome.
He devoured Plato, Aristotle, the Fathers ofthe Church, and he analysed and classified all that he read.
He already knew English, and set himself to master German in order to read Hegel in the original.
In the month of August 1851 he came forward as a candidate for the fellowship in philosophy (agrigation de philosophic) in company with his friends Suckau and Cambier. This decision created almost a scandal. Everybody had taken for granted that he would be admitted first. The Minister of Public Instruction, however, judged Taine less severely, and appointed him provisionally to the chair of philosophy at the college of Toulon on 6th October 1851, but he never entered upon his duties, as he did not wish to be so far from his mother.
Taine was the only one to refuse his endorsement.
This time he could bear it no longer, and he applied for leave, which was readily granted him on 9th October 1852, and renewed every year till his decennial appointment came to an end and and on 13th October he was transferred to Nevers as a substitute.
On 10th April 1852 a decree was published by which three years of preliminary study were necessary before a candidate could compete for the fellowship, but by which a doctor's degree in letters counted as two years. As soon as Taine heard of this he at once began to prepare himself for the fellowship in letters, and to work hard at Latin and Greek themes.
Taine immediately set to work at his dissertations for the doctor's degree, on the 8th June 1852 they were finished, and 150 pages of French prose on the Sensations and a Latin essay were sent to Paris. On the 15th July he was informed that the tendency of his "Essay on the Sensations" made it impossible for the Sorbonne to accent it.
He then started for Paris, where an appointment which was equivalent to a suspension awaited him.
In a few months his two dissertations, "De personis Platonicis" and the "Essay on La Fontaine's fables" were finished, and on 30th May 1853 he took his doctor's degree.
In the beginning of 1854 Taine, after six years of uninterrupted efforts, broke down and was obliged to rest, but he found a way of utilizing his enforced leisure. He let himself be read to, and for the first time his attention was attracted to the French Revolution, also he acquired a knowledge of physiology in following a course of medicine. The year 1854 was an important one in the life of Taine. His method of expounding philosophy underwent a change. Simultaneously with this change in his works his life became less self-centred and solitary.
Here again the moral tendency of his work excited lively opposition, and after much discussion the competition was postponed till 1855.
Taine toned down some of the censured passages, and the work was crowned by the Academy in 1855.
No sooner had he deposited his dissertations at the Sorbonne than he began to write an essay on Livy for one of the competitions set by the Academy.
The "Essay on Livy" was published in 1856 with the addition of a preface setting forth determinist doctrines, much to the disgust of the Academy.
These years (1855 - 1856) were Taine's periods of greatest activity and happiness in production. In February 1855 he published an article on “La Bruyere” in the “Revue de Instruction Publique”. He published seventeen articles in this review, a short article in the “Revue des Deux Mondes” on “Jean Reynaud” in August 1855. But he was seeking a larger field. In this volume he energetically attacked the principles which underlie the philosophy of Victor Cousin and his school with an irony which amounts at times to irreverence.
His doctor's thesis, Les Sensations (1856), was refused at the Sorbonne because of its materialistic doctrine.
Twenty articles were published in 1856 on the most diverse subjects, ranging from Menander to Macaulay.
Important articles on his work were an article “Voyage aux Pyrenees” and two articles by Guizot. After the publication of “Les Philosophes Franqais”, the articles of “Sainte-Beuve in the Moniteur” (9th and 16th March 1856), of “Sherer” in the “Bibliotheque Universelle” (1858), and of “Planche” in the “Revue des Deux Mondes” show that from this moment he had taken a place in the front rank of the new generation of men of letters.
In 1858 appeared a volume of “Essais de Critique et d'Histoire”. He had made a long stay in England in 1858, and had brought back copious notes. In 1860 “La Fontaine et ses Fables”, and a second edition of his “Philosophes Franqais”.
In 1863 his “Histoire de la littérature anglaise” became the most important work.
During all this time he was persevering at his history of English literature up to the time of Byron.
It was from that moment that Taine's influence began to be felt, he was in constant intercourse with Renan, Sainte-Beuve, Sherer, Gautier, Flaubert, Saint-Victor and the Goncourts, and gave up a little of his time to his friends and to the calls of society.
The following year, however, in March, Marshal Randon, Minister of War, appointed him examiner in history and German to the military academy of Saint Cyr.
In 1864 Taine sent this work to the Academy to compete for the Prix Bordin.
M. de Falloux and Mr. Dupanloup attacked Taine with violence; he was warmly defended by Guizot. Finally, after three days of discussion, it was decided that as the prize could not be awarded to Taine, it should not be awarded at all.
In 1864 he spent February to May in Italy, which furnished him with several articles for the “Revue des Deux Mondes” .
His Idéalisme anglais (1864) and Positivisme anglais (1864) are excellent studies of Thomas Carlyle and J. S. Mill.
On 26th October 1864 he succeeded Viollet-le-Duc as professor of the history of art and aesthetics at the ficole des Beaux Arts.
The period from 1864 to 1870 was perhaps the happiest of Taine's life.
He derived pleasure from his employment at the Beaux Arts and Saint Cyr, which left ample leisure for travel and research.
The notes he had taken for the past two years on Paris and on French society under the sub-title of " Vie et Opinions de Thomas Frederic Graindorge" were published in a volume in 1867, the most personal of his books, and an epitome of his ideas.
In 1867 appeared a supplementary volume to his history of English literature, and in January 1870 his Theorie de VIntelligence.
On 28th June 1870 he started to visit Germany, but his journey was abruptly interrupted by the outbreak of the war. His project had to be abandoned, and Taine, deeply shaken by the events of 1870, felt that it was the duty of every Frenchman to work solely in the interests of France.
After his second journey to England in 1871, he published his notes later in 1872 under the title of “Notes sur Vangleterre”.
From the autumn of 1871 to the end of his life his great work, “Les Origines de la France Contemporaine”, occupied all his time, and in 1884 he gave up his professorship in order to devote himself wholly to his task.
The Revolution merely gave it a new form. The Origines differ from the rest of Taine's work in that, although he applies to a period of history the method which he had already applied to literature and the arts. He is unable to approach his subject in the same spirit, he loses his philosophic calm, he cannot help writing as a man and a Frenchman, and he lets his feelings have play, but what the work loses thus in impartiality it gains in life.
(Lorsque vous tournez les grandes pages roides d'un in-fol...)
(This, my dear Marcelin, is a trip to the Pyrenees; I have...)
(Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828-1893) was a French critic a...)
(Excerpt from The French Revolution, Vol. 2 In this volum...)
He returned to the philosophy of the 18th century, especially to Condillac and to the theory of transformed sensation.
He started with the axiom that the complete expression of a society is to be found in its literature, and that the way to obtain an idea of a society is to study its literature.
Hence Race, Environment, Time-these are the three things to be studied before the man is taken into consideration.
Taine completed this theory by another, that of the predominating faculty, the faculty mattresse.
This consists in believing that every man, and especially every great man, is dominated by one faculty so strong as to subordinate all others to it, which is the centre of the man's activity and leads him into one particular channel.
It is this theory, obviously the result of his love of abstraction, which is the secret of Taine's power and of his deficiencies.
He had a passion for abstraction.
Taine's theory of the universe, his doctrine, his method of writing criticism and history, his philosophical system, are all the result of this logical gift, this passion for reasoning classification and abstraction.
He always looked for this salient quality, this particular channel, and when he had once made up his mind what it was, he massed up all the evidence which went to corroborate and to illustrate this one quality, and necessarily omitted all conflicting evidences.
The result was an inclination to lay stress on one side of a character or a question to the exclusion of all others.
His object was to explain the existing constitution of France by studying the more immediate causes of the present state of affairs-the last years of what is called the Ancien Regime, the Revolution and the beginning of the 19th century, to each of which several volumes were assigned.
Quotations:
"Every man and every book can be summed up in three pages, and those three pages can be summed up in three lines. "
" С'est beau comme un syllogisme, " he said of a sonata of Beethoven.
Quotes from others about the person
M. Lemaitre called Taine"a po'ete-logicien".
In 1868 he married Mademoiselle Denuelle, the daughter of a distinguished architect.