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Maurice Barrès

January 01, 1970

Auguste-Maurice Barrès (French: [baʁɛs]; 19 August 1862 – 4 December 1923) was a French novelist, journalist, philosopher, and politician. Spending some time in Italy, he became a figure in French literature with the release of his work The Cult of the Self in 1888. In politics, he was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1889 as a Boulangist and would play a prominent political role for the rest of his life.

Maurice Barrès
Barrès in 1923
BornAuguste-Maurice Barrès
(1862-08-19)19 August 1862
Charmes, Vosges, France
Died4 December 1923(1923-12-04) (aged 61)
Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris, France
OccupationJournalist, novelist, politician
Literary movement

Biography edit

Barrès was associated in his literary works with Symbolism, a movement which had equivalence with British Aestheticism and Italian Decadentism; indeed he was a close associate of Gabriele d'Annunzio representing the latter. As the name of his trilogy suggests, his works glorified a humanistic love of the self and he also flirted with occult mysticisms in his youth. The Dreyfus affair saw an ideological shift from a liberal individualism rooted in the French Revolution to a more organic and traditional concept of the nation. He also became a leading anti-Dreyfusard[1] popularising the term nationalisme to describe his views. He stood on a platform of "Nationalism and Protectionism.".[2]

Politically, he became involved with various groups such as the Ligue des Patriotes of Paul Déroulède, of which he became the leader in 1914. Barrès was close to Charles Maurras, founder of the monarchist party Action Française. Though he remained a republican, Barrès developed a strong influence on various French monarchists of his day, as well as various other figures. During the First World War, he championed the Union Sacrée political truce. In later life, Barrès returned to the Catholic faith: he was involved in a campaign to restore French church buildings and helped establish 24 June as a national day of remembrance for St. Joan of Arc.

Early years edit

 
Portrait of a young Maurice Barrès.
 
Les Déracinés, published in 1897.

Born at Charmes, Vosges, he received his secondary education at the lycée of Nancy, attending there the lessons of Auguste Burdeau, later pictured as social climber Paul Bouteiller in Les Déracinés. In 1883 continued his legal studies in Paris. Establishing himself at first in the Quartier Latin, he became acquainted with Leconte de Lisle's cenacle and with the symbolists in the 1880s, even meeting Victor Hugo once.[3][4] He had already started contributing to the monthly periodical, Jeune France (Young France), and he now issued a periodical of his own, Les Taches d'encre, which survived for only a few months. After four years of journalism he settled in Italy, where he wrote Sous l'œil des barbares (1888), the first volume of a trilogie du moi (also called Le Culte du moi or The Cult of the Self), completed by Un Homme libre (1889), and Le Jardin de Bérénice (1891). The Cult of the Self trilogy was influenced by Romanticism, and also made an apology of the pleasure of the senses.

He supplemented these apologies for his narcissism with L'Ennemi des lois (1892), and with an admirable volume of impressions of travel, Du sang, de la volupté, de la mort (1893). Barrès wrote his early books in an elaborate and often very obscure style.[citation needed]

The Comédie Française produced his play Une Journée parlementaire in 1894. A year after establishing himself in Neuilly, he began his trilogy in 1897, Le Roman de l'énergie nationale (Novel of the National Energy), with the publication of Les Déracinés.[4] In this second major trilogy, he superated his early individualism with a patriotic fidelity to the fatherland and an organicist conception of the nation (see below for details).[3] Affected by the Dreyfus Affair, and finding himself on the side of the Anti-Dreyfusards, Barrès played a leading role alongside Charles Maurras, which initiated his shift to the political right; Barrès oriented himself towards a lyrical form of nationalism, founded on the cult of the earth and the dead ("la terre et les morts", "earth and the dead" — see below for details).[3]

The Roman de l'énergie nationale trilogy makes a plea for local patriotism, militarism, the faith to one's roots and to one's family, and for the preservation of the distinctive qualities of the old French provinces. Les Déracinés narrates the adventures of seven young Lorrainers who set out to conquer fortune in Paris. Six of them survive in the second novel of the trilogy, L'Appel au soldat (1900), which gives the history of Boulangism; the sequel, Leurs figures (1902), deals with the Panama scandals. Later works include:

  • Scènes et doctrines du nationalisme (1902)
  • Les Amitiés françaises (1903), in which he urges the inculcation of patriotism by the early study of national history
  • Ce que j'ai vu à Rennes (1904)
  • Au service de l'Allemagne (1905), the experiences of an Alsatian conscript in a German regiment
  • Le Voyage de Sparte (1906).

He presented himself in 1905 to the Académie française, but was supplanted by Etienne Lamy. He then tried again, but inclined himself before the candidacy of the former Minister Alexandre Ribot. But he was finally elected the next year, gaining 25 voices against 8 to Edmond Hauraucourt and one to Jean Aicart on 25 January 1906.[3]

Barrès was also a friend since his youth of the occultist Stanislas de Guaita, and was attracted by Asia, sufism and shi'ism. But he returned in his later years to the Catholic faith, engaging in L'Echo de Paris a campaign in favour of the restoration of the churches of France. His son Philippe Barrès followed him in a journalism career.

Political activism edit

 
Autochrome portrait by Auguste Léon, 1918

As a young man, Barrès carried his Romantic and individualist theory of the Ego into politics as an ardent partisan of General Boulanger, locating himself in the more populist side of the heterogenous Boulangist coalition.[5] He directed a Boulangist paper at Nancy, and was elected deputy in 1889, at the age of 27, under a platform of "Nationalism, Protectionism, and Socialism",[2] retaining his seat in the legislature until 1893, when he was defeated under the etiquette of "National Republican and Socialist" (Républicain nationaliste et socialiste).[4] From 1889, Barrès' activism overshadowed his literary activities, although he tried to maintain both.[5]

He shifted however to the right-wing during the Dreyfus Affair, becoming a leading mouthpiece, alongside Charles Maurras, of the Anti-Dreyfusard side.[3] The Socialist leader Léon Blum tried to convince him to join the Dreyfusards, but Barrès refused and wrote several anti-Semitic pamphlets. He wrote, "That Dreyfus is guilty, I deduce not from the facts themselves, but from his race."[6][7] Barrès' anti-Jewishness found its roots both in the scientific racial contemporary theories and on Biblical exegesis.[7]

He founded the short-lived review La Cocarde (The Cockade) in 1894 (September 1894 – March 1895[8]) to defend his ideas, attempting to bridge the gap between the far-left and the far-right.[5] The Cocarde, nationalist, anti-parliamentarist and anti-foreign, included a diverse collection of contributors from a wide variety of backgrounds (monarchists, socialists, anarchists, Jews, Protestants[4]), including Frédéric Amouretti, Charles Maurras, René Boylesve and Fernand Pelloutier.[2]

He was again beaten during the 1896 elections in Neuilly, as a candidate of the Socialist leader Jean Jaurès, and then again in 1897 as a nationalist anti-Semitic candidate, having broken with the left-wing during the Dreyfus Affair.[4]

Barrès then assumed the leadership of the Ligue de la Patrie française (League of the French Fatherland), before taking membership in the Ligue des Patriotes (Patriot League) of Paul Déroulède. In 1914, he became the leader of the Patriot League.[3]

Close to the nationalist writer Charles Maurras, founder of the monarchist Action française movement, Barrès refused however to endorse monarchist ideas, although he demonstrated sympathy throughout his life for the Action française. Most of the later monarchist theorists (Jacques Bainville, Henri Vaugeois, Léon Daudet, Henri Massis, Jacques Maritain, Georges Bernanos, Thierry Maulnier...) have recognised their debt toward Barrès, who also inspired several generations of writers (among which Montherlant, Malraux, Mauriac and Aragon).

Barrès was elected deputy of the Seine in 1906, and retained his seat until his death. He sat at that time among the Entente républicaine démocratique conservative party. In 1908, he opposed in Parliament his friend and political opponent Jean Jaurès, refusing the Socialist leader's will to Pantheonize the writer Émile Zola. Despite his political views, he was one of the first to show his respect to Jaurès' remains after his assassination on the eve of World War I.

During World War I, Barrès was one of the proponents of the Union Sacrée, which earned him the nickname "nightingale of bloodshed" ("rossignol des carnages"[5]). The Canard enchaîné satirical newspaper called him the "chief of the tribe of brainwashers" ("chef de la tribu des bourreurs de crâne").[3] His personal notes showed however that he himself did not always believe in his purported war optimism, being at times close to defeatism. During the war Barrès also partly came back on the mistakes of his youth, by paying tribute to French Jews in Les familles spirituelles de la France, where he placed them as one of the four elements of the "national genius", alongside Traditionalists, Protestants and Socialists – thus opposing himself to Maurras who saw in them the "four confederate states" of "Anti-France".

After World War I, Barrès demanded the annexation of Luxembourg into the French Republic, and also sought to increase French influence in the Rhineland.[9] On 24 June 1920, the National Assembly adopted his draft aiming to establish a national day in remembrance of Joan of Arc.

Nationalism edit

Barrès is considered, alongside Charles Maurras, as one of the main thinkers of ethnic nationalism at the turn of the century in France, associated with Revanchism — the desire to reconquer the Alsace-Lorraine, annexed by the newly created German Empire at the end of the 1871 Franco-Prussian War (Barrès was aged 8 at that time). In fact, he himself popularised the word "nationalism" in French.[5]

This has been noted by Zeev Sternhell,[10] Michel Winock (who titled the first part of his book, Le Siècle des intellectuels, "Les Années Barrès" ("The Barrès' Years"), followed by Les Années André Gide and Les Années Jean-Paul Sartre),[11] Pierre-André Taguieff,[12] etc. He shared as common points with Paul Bourget his disdain for utilitarianism and liberalism.[5]

Opposed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's theory of social contract, Barrès considered the 'Nation' (which he used to replace the 'People') as already historically founded: it did not need a "general will" to establish itself, thus also contrasting with Ernest Renan's definition of the Nation.[13] Much closer to Herder and Fichte than to Renan in his definition of the Nation, Barrès opposed French centralism (as did Maurras), as he considered the Nation to be a multiplicity of local allegiances, first to the family, the village, the region, and ultimately to the nation-state.[13] Influenced by Edmund Burke, Frédéric Le Play and Hippolyte Taine, he developed an organicist conception of the Nation which contrasted with the universalism of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.[13] According to Barrès, the People is not founded by an act of autonomy, but find its origins in the earth (le sol), history (institutions, life and material conditions) and traditions and inheritance ("the dead").[13] His early individualism was quickly superseded by an organicist theory of the social link, in which "the individual is nothing, society is everything".[14]

Barrès feared miscegenation of modern times, represented by Paris, claiming against Michelet that it jeopardised the unity of the Nation.[15] The Nation was to be balanced between various local nationalities (he spoke of the "Lorraine nationality" as much as of the "French nationality"[13]) through decentralisation and the call for a leader, giving a Bonapartist aspect to his thought which explained his attraction for the General Boulanger and his opposition to liberal democracy.[13] He pleaded for a direct democracy and personalisation of power, as well as for the implementation of popular referendums as done in Switzerland.[13] In this nationalist frame, anti-Semitism was to be the cohesive factor for a right-wing mass movement.[13]

Contrary to popular belief, Maurice Barrès never used the term “le grand remplacement” [great replacement], either in his novel "L'appel au soldat" or anywhere else. However he did make use of the underlying concept, namely that the French national character was being harmed by immigration of certain ethnic groups.[16]

Hispanophilia edit

Barrès was a noted hispanophile.[17] Influenced by the romantic mythification of Spain, he described the country as "an Africa leaving your soul with a sort of furor so fast as chilli does in your mouth".[18] Always passionate about the "South" and "Orient", he emphasized in his work the period of Moorish domination.[19] He interpreted the Spain of the time as a nation refractory to the attempts of economic and bureaucratic rationalization threatening his own country.[17] He visited Spain in 1892, 1893 and 1902, capturing his vision of the country in his writings, taking a particular interest in Toledo.[20]

Dada and Barrès edit

The Dadaists organised in spring 1921 the trial of Barrès, charged with an "attack on the safety of the mind" ("attentat à la sûreté de l'esprit") and sentenced him to 20 years of forced labour. This fictitious trial also marked the dissolution of Dada - its founders, among whom was Tristan Tzara, refusing any form of justice even if organised by Dada.

Final years and death edit

An Orientalist romance, Un jardin sur l'Oronte (A Garden on the Orontes)—which would be the basis of an opera of the same name—was published in 1922, triggering what would be called la querelle de l'Oronte (the Orontes Quarrel).

Devout and sincere Catholics were shocked by the complacent, skilful, sometimes enchanting ways of Barrès in mixing the sacred and the profane. His heroine [Oriante] was both pagan and irresistible—and this provoked revolt.[21]

Barrès died in Neuilly-sur-Seine on 4 December 1923.

Works in English translation edit

  • The Undying Spirit of France, Yale University Press, 1917.
  • "Young Soldiers of France". In The War and the Spirit of Youth, Atlantic Monthly Company, 1917.
  • Colette Baudoche: The Story of a Young Girl of Metz, George H. Doran Company, 1918.
  • "Officers and Gentlemen", The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CXXI, 1918.
  • The Faith of France, Houghton Mifflin & Company, 1918.
  • The Sacred Hill, The Macaulay Company, 1929.
  • "Uprooted". In The World's Greatest Books, W. H. Wise & Co., 1941.

Other edit

  • Massia Bibikoff, Our Indians at Marseilles, with an Introduction by Maurice Barrès, Smith, Elder and Company, 1915.
  • Georges Lafond, Covered with Mud and Glory, with a Preface by Maurice Barrès, Small, Maynard & Company, 1918.

References edit

  1. ^ "Maurice Barres and His Books," The Living Age, 25 November 1922.
  2. ^ a b c Eugen Weber (1962). "Nationalism, Socialism and National-Socialism in France". French Historical Studies. 2 (3): 273–307. doi:10.2307/285883. JSTOR 285883.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Biographical notice 7 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine of Barrès on the Académie française's website (in French)
  4. ^ a b c d e Biographical notice 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine French National Education website (Nancy) (in French)
  5. ^ a b c d e f Pascal Ory, "La nouvelle droite fin de siècle" in Nouvelle histoire des idées politiques (dir. P. Ory), Hachette Pluriel, 1987, pp. 457–465. (in French)
  6. ^ 5 Lessons of the DSK Affair, Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Daily Beast, 2 July 2011
  7. ^ a b Alain-Gérard Slama (professor at Sciences-Po), "Maurras (1858 (sic)-1952): ou le mythe d'une droite révolutionnaire" 26 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine, article first published in L'Histoire in 2002 (in French)
  8. ^ Biographical notice from Chr. Biet, J.-Paul Brighelli, J.-Luc Rispail, Guide des auteurs, de la critique, des genres et des mouvements, Magnard, 1984 (in French)
  9. ^ Michel Pauly: Geschichte Luxemburgs p.83 (2013)(ISBN 9783406622250)
  10. ^ Zeev Sternhell, Maurice Barrès et le nationalisme français, Bruxelles, Complexe, 1985
  11. ^ Michel Winock, Le Siècle des intellectuel, Paris, Seuil, 1997
  12. ^ P.A. Taguieff, « Le nationalisme des nationalistes. Un problème pour l'histoire des idées politiques en France » in Théories de la nation, sous la direction de Gil Delannoi et de Pierre André Taguieff, Paris, Kimé, 1991
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h Brigitte Krulic (professor at University of Paris-X), Le peuple français chez Maurice Barrès: une entité insaisissable entre unité et diversité, 2 February 2007 (Paper read during the conference « 'Peuple' et 'Volk' : réalité de fait, postulat juridique » organized at the University of Paris X-Nanterre on 10 December 2005 (in French)
  14. ^ Les Déracinés (Roman de l'énergie nationale I), in Romans et voyages, R. Laffont Bouquins, 1994, p.615
  15. ^ See his discourse of reception at the Académie française 7 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine on 17 January 1907 (in French)
  16. ^ Le « grand remplacement » de Maurice Barrès, Désintox, ARTE https://es-es.facebook.com/28minutes/videos/601716683701994/
  17. ^ a b González Cuevas, Pedro Carlos (2007). "Maurice Barrès y España". Historia Contemporánea (34). Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco: 202. ISSN 1130-2402.
  18. ^ Archilés Cardona, Ferran (2018). "¿Materia de España? Imaginarios nacionales y persistencia del estereotipo español en la cultura francesa (1898-1936)". Amnis. doi:10.4000/amnis.3265. ISSN 1764-7193.
  19. ^ Archilés Cardona 2018.
  20. ^ Porras Medrano, Adelaida (1999). "Toledo o el secreto de Maurice Barrés". Thélème. Revista Complutense de Estudios Franceses (14). Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid: 14–15. ISSN 1139-9368.
  21. ^ The Bookman. Vol. 56. 1923. p. 655.

Further reading edit

  • Bourne, Randolph S. (1914). "Maurice Barres and the Youth of France", The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CXIV, No. 3, pp. 394–399.
  • Bregy, Katherine (1927). "Mysteries and Maurice Barrès," Commonweal, p. 468.
  • Cabeen, D. C. (1929). "Maurice Barrès and the 'Young' Reviews," Modern Language Notes, Vol. 44, No. 8, pp. 532–537.
  • Cheydleur, F. D. (1926). "Maurice Barres: Author and Patriot", The North American Review, Vol. CCXXIII, No. 830, pp. 150–156.
  • Clyne, Anthony (1920). "Maurice Barrès," The Contemporary Review, Vol. CXVII, pp. 682–688.
  • Curtis, Michael (1959). Three Against the Third Republic: Sorel, Barrès and Maurras. Transaction Publishers.
  • Eccles, F. Y. (1908). "Maurice Barrès", The Dublin Review, Vol. CXLIII, No. 286, pp. 244–263.
  • Doty, C. Stewart (1976). From Cultural Rebellion to Counterrevolution: The Politics of Maurice Barrès. Ohio University Press.
  • Evans, Silvan (1962). Eastern Bastion: The Life and Works of Maurice Barrès: A Short Centenary Study. Ilfracombe: A.H. Stockwell.
  • Fleming, Thomas (2011). , Chronicles Magazine.
  • Gide, André (1959). "The Barrès Problem." In: Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality. New York: Meridan Books, pp. 74–90.
  • Gosse, Edmund (1914). "M. Maurice Barrès". In: French Profiles. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 287–295.
  • Greaves, Anthony A. (1978). Maurice Barrès. Boston: Twayne Publishers.
  • Grover, M. (1969). "The Inheritors of Maurice Barrès", The Modern Language Review, Vol. 64, No. 3, pp. 529–545.
  • Guérard, Albert Léon (1916). "Maurice Barrés". In: Five Masters of French Romance. London: T. Fisher Unwin, pp. 216–248.
  • Hufnagel, Henning (2015). "All the Colours of the East. 'Ideological Geography', Orientalism, and the Fluctuating Semantics of the East in the Works of Maurice Barrès". Babel. 32 (32): 195–219. doi:10.4000/babel.4300.  
  • Huneker, James (1909). "The Evolution of an Egoist: Maurice Barrès". In: Egoists: A Book of Supermen. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 207–235.
  • Hutchinson, Hilary (1994). "Gide and Barrès: Fifty Years of Protest", The Modern Language Review, Vol. 89, No. 4, pp. 856–864.
  • Maloney, Wendi A. (1988). Maurice Barrès and the Cult of Adolescence. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
  • Ouston, Philip (1974). The Imagination of Maurice Barrès. University of Toronto Press.
  • Perry, Catherine (1998). "Reconfiguring Wagner's Tristan: Political Aesthetics in the Works of Maurice Barrès"", French Forum, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 317–335.
  • Robinson, Agnes Mary Frances (1919). "Maurice Barrès." In: Twentieth Century French Writers. London: W. Collins Sons & Co., pp. 1–33.
  • Scheifley, William H. (1924). "Maurice Barrès," The Sewanee Review, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 464–473.
  • Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley (1914). "Maurice Barrès", The New Republic, Vol. I, No. 6, p. 26.
  • Stephens, Winifred (1908). "Maurice Barrès, 1862". In: French Novelists of Today. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, pp. 179–220.
  • Souday, Paul (1924). "Maurice Barrès", The Living Age, Vol. CCCXX, No. 4153, pp. 269–271.
  • Soucy, Robert (1963). The Image of the Hero in the Works of Maurice Barrès and Pierre Drieu la Rochelle. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
  • Soucy, Robert (1967). "Barrès and Fascism", French Historical Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 67–97.
  • Stephens, Winifred (1919). The France I Know. New York: E.P. Dutton & Company.
  • Thorold, Algar (1916). "The Ideas of Maurice Barrès", The Edinburgh Review, Vol. CCXXIII, No. 455, pp. 83–99.
  • Trevor Field (1982). Maurice Barrès. London: Grant & Cutler, Ltd.
  • Turquet-Milnes, G. (1921). "Maurice Barrès." In: Some Modern French Writers. New York: Robert M. McBride & Company, pp. 79–106.
  • Shenton, Gordon (1979). The Fictions of the Self: The Early Works of Maurice Barrès. U.N.C. Department of Romance Languages.
  • Soucy, Robert (1972). Fascism in France: The Case of Maurice Barrès. University of California Press.
  • Sternhell, Zeev (1971). "Barres et la Gauche: Du Boulangisme a "la Cocarde" (1889–1895)", Le Mouvement Social, Vol. 95, pp. 77–130.
  • Sternhell, Zeev (1973). "National Socialism and Antisemitism: The Case of Maurice Barrès", Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 47–66.
  • Suleiman, Susan Rubin (1980). "The Structure of Confrontation: Nizan, Barrès, Malraux," MLN, Vol. 95, No. 4, 938–967.
  • Virtanen, Reino (1947). "Barrès and Pascal," PMLA, Vol. 62, No. 3, pp. 802–823.
  • Weber, Eugen (1975). "Inheritance and Dilettantism: the Politics of Maurice Barrès", Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 109–131.

In foreign languages edit

  • René Jacquet (1900). Notre Maître Maurice Barrès, Librairie Nilsson.
  • J. Ernest Charles (1907). La Carrière de Maurice Barrès, Académicien, E. Sansot & Cie.
  • René Gillouin (1907). Maurice Barrès, E. Sansot & Cie.
  • Henri Massis (1909). La Pensée de Maurice Barrès, Mercure de France.
  • Nicolas Beauduin (1910). "L'Evolution de Maurice Barrès", Quelques Uns, No. 1.
  • Jean Herluison (1911). Maurice Barrès et le Problème de l'Ordre, Nouvelle Librairie Nationale.
  • Jacques Jary (1912). Essai sur l'Art et la Psychologie de Maurice Barrès, Emile-Paul.
  • Paul Bourget (1924). La Leçon de Barrès, À la Cité des Livres.
  • François Mauriac (1945). La Rencontre avec Barrès, La Table Ronde.
  • Albert Garreau (1945). Barrès, Défenseur de la Civilisation, Éditions des Loisirs.
  • Sarah Vajda (2000). Maurice Barrès, Flammarion.

External links edit

 
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Barrès, Maurice".

January 01, 1970
maurice, barrès, auguste, french, baʁɛs, august, 1862, december, 1923, french, novelist, journalist, philosopher, politician, spending, some, time, italy, became, figure, french, literature, with, release, work, cult, self, 1888, politics, first, elected, cham. Auguste Maurice Barres French baʁɛs 19 August 1862 4 December 1923 was a French novelist journalist philosopher and politician Spending some time in Italy he became a figure in French literature with the release of his work The Cult of the Self in 1888 In politics he was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1889 as a Boulangist and would play a prominent political role for the rest of his life Maurice BarresBarres in 1923BornAuguste Maurice Barres 1862 08 19 19 August 1862Charmes Vosges FranceDied4 December 1923 1923 12 04 aged 61 Neuilly sur Seine Paris FranceOccupationJournalist novelist politicianLiterary movementSymbolismNationalism Contents 1 Biography 1 1 Early years 1 2 Political activism 1 3 Nationalism 1 4 Hispanophilia 1 5 Dada and Barres 1 6 Final years and death 2 Works in English translation 2 1 Other 3 References 4 Further reading 5 In foreign languages 6 External linksBiography editBarres was associated in his literary works with Symbolism a movement which had equivalence with British Aestheticism and Italian Decadentism indeed he was a close associate of Gabriele d Annunzio representing the latter As the name of his trilogy suggests his works glorified a humanistic love of the self and he also flirted with occult mysticisms in his youth The Dreyfus affair saw an ideological shift from a liberal individualism rooted in the French Revolution to a more organic and traditional concept of the nation He also became a leading anti Dreyfusard 1 popularising the term nationalisme to describe his views He stood on a platform of Nationalism and Protectionism 2 Politically he became involved with various groups such as the Ligue des Patriotes of Paul Deroulede of which he became the leader in 1914 Barres was close to Charles Maurras founder of the monarchist party Action Francaise Though he remained a republican Barres developed a strong influence on various French monarchists of his day as well as various other figures During the First World War he championed the Union Sacree political truce In later life Barres returned to the Catholic faith he was involved in a campaign to restore French church buildings and helped establish 24 June as a national day of remembrance for St Joan of Arc Early years edit nbsp Portrait of a young Maurice Barres nbsp Les Deracines published in 1897 Born at Charmes Vosges he received his secondary education at the lycee of Nancy attending there the lessons of Auguste Burdeau later pictured as social climber Paul Bouteiller in Les Deracines In 1883 continued his legal studies in Paris Establishing himself at first in the Quartier Latin he became acquainted with Leconte de Lisle s cenacle and with the symbolists in the 1880s even meeting Victor Hugo once 3 4 He had already started contributing to the monthly periodical Jeune France Young France and he now issued a periodical of his own Les Taches d encre which survived for only a few months After four years of journalism he settled in Italy where he wrote Sous l œil des barbares 1888 the first volume of a trilogie du moi also called Le Culte du moi or The Cult of the Self completed by Un Homme libre 1889 and Le Jardin de Berenice 1891 The Cult of the Self trilogy was influenced by Romanticism and also made an apology of the pleasure of the senses He supplemented these apologies for his narcissism with L Ennemi des lois 1892 and with an admirable volume of impressions of travel Du sang de la volupte de la mort 1893 Barres wrote his early books in an elaborate and often very obscure style citation needed The Comedie Francaise produced his play Une Journee parlementaire in 1894 A year after establishing himself in Neuilly he began his trilogy in 1897 Le Roman de l energie nationale Novel of the National Energy with the publication of Les Deracines 4 In this second major trilogy he superated his early individualism with a patriotic fidelity to the fatherland and an organicist conception of the nation see below for details 3 Affected by the Dreyfus Affair and finding himself on the side of the Anti Dreyfusards Barres played a leading role alongside Charles Maurras which initiated his shift to the political right Barres oriented himself towards a lyrical form of nationalism founded on the cult of the earth and the dead la terre et les morts earth and the dead see below for details 3 The Roman de l energie nationale trilogy makes a plea for local patriotism militarism the faith to one s roots and to one s family and for the preservation of the distinctive qualities of the old French provinces Les Deracines narrates the adventures of seven young Lorrainers who set out to conquer fortune in Paris Six of them survive in the second novel of the trilogy L Appel au soldat 1900 which gives the history of Boulangism the sequel Leurs figures 1902 deals with the Panama scandals Later works include Scenes et doctrines du nationalisme 1902 Les Amities francaises 1903 in which he urges the inculcation of patriotism by the early study of national history Ce que j ai vu a Rennes 1904 Au service de l Allemagne 1905 the experiences of an Alsatian conscript in a German regiment Le Voyage de Sparte 1906 He presented himself in 1905 to the Academie francaise but was supplanted by Etienne Lamy He then tried again but inclined himself before the candidacy of the former Minister Alexandre Ribot But he was finally elected the next year gaining 25 voices against 8 to Edmond Hauraucourt and one to Jean Aicart on 25 January 1906 3 Barres was also a friend since his youth of the occultist Stanislas de Guaita and was attracted by Asia sufism and shi ism But he returned in his later years to the Catholic faith engaging in L Echo de Paris a campaign in favour of the restoration of the churches of France His son Philippe Barres followed him in a journalism career Political activism edit nbsp Autochrome portrait by Auguste Leon 1918 As a young man Barres carried his Romantic and individualist theory of the Ego into politics as an ardent partisan of General Boulanger locating himself in the more populist side of the heterogenous Boulangist coalition 5 He directed a Boulangist paper at Nancy and was elected deputy in 1889 at the age of 27 under a platform of Nationalism Protectionism and Socialism 2 retaining his seat in the legislature until 1893 when he was defeated under the etiquette of National Republican and Socialist Republicain nationaliste et socialiste 4 From 1889 Barres activism overshadowed his literary activities although he tried to maintain both 5 He shifted however to the right wing during the Dreyfus Affair becoming a leading mouthpiece alongside Charles Maurras of the Anti Dreyfusard side 3 The Socialist leader Leon Blum tried to convince him to join the Dreyfusards but Barres refused and wrote several anti Semitic pamphlets He wrote That Dreyfus is guilty I deduce not from the facts themselves but from his race 6 7 Barres anti Jewishness found its roots both in the scientific racial contemporary theories and on Biblical exegesis 7 He founded the short lived review La Cocarde The Cockade in 1894 September 1894 March 1895 8 to defend his ideas attempting to bridge the gap between the far left and the far right 5 The Cocarde nationalist anti parliamentarist and anti foreign included a diverse collection of contributors from a wide variety of backgrounds monarchists socialists anarchists Jews Protestants 4 including Frederic Amouretti Charles Maurras Rene Boylesve and Fernand Pelloutier 2 He was again beaten during the 1896 elections in Neuilly as a candidate of the Socialist leader Jean Jaures and then again in 1897 as a nationalist anti Semitic candidate having broken with the left wing during the Dreyfus Affair 4 Barres then assumed the leadership of the Ligue de la Patrie francaise League of the French Fatherland before taking membership in the Ligue des Patriotes Patriot League of Paul Deroulede In 1914 he became the leader of the Patriot League 3 Close to the nationalist writer Charles Maurras founder of the monarchist Action francaise movement Barres refused however to endorse monarchist ideas although he demonstrated sympathy throughout his life for the Action francaise Most of the later monarchist theorists Jacques Bainville Henri Vaugeois Leon Daudet Henri Massis Jacques Maritain Georges Bernanos Thierry Maulnier have recognised their debt toward Barres who also inspired several generations of writers among which Montherlant Malraux Mauriac and Aragon Barres was elected deputy of the Seine in 1906 and retained his seat until his death He sat at that time among the Entente republicaine democratique conservative party In 1908 he opposed in Parliament his friend and political opponent Jean Jaures refusing the Socialist leader s will to Pantheonize the writer Emile Zola Despite his political views he was one of the first to show his respect to Jaures remains after his assassination on the eve of World War I During World War I Barres was one of the proponents of the Union Sacree which earned him the nickname nightingale of bloodshed rossignol des carnages 5 The Canard enchaine satirical newspaper called him the chief of the tribe of brainwashers chef de la tribu des bourreurs de crane 3 His personal notes showed however that he himself did not always believe in his purported war optimism being at times close to defeatism During the war Barres also partly came back on the mistakes of his youth by paying tribute to French Jews in Les familles spirituelles de la France where he placed them as one of the four elements of the national genius alongside Traditionalists Protestants and Socialists thus opposing himself to Maurras who saw in them the four confederate states of Anti France After World War I Barres demanded the annexation of Luxembourg into the French Republic and also sought to increase French influence in the Rhineland 9 On 24 June 1920 the National Assembly adopted his draft aiming to establish a national day in remembrance of Joan of Arc Nationalism edit Barres is considered alongside Charles Maurras as one of the main thinkers of ethnic nationalism at the turn of the century in France associated with Revanchism the desire to reconquer the Alsace Lorraine annexed by the newly created German Empire at the end of the 1871 Franco Prussian War Barres was aged 8 at that time In fact he himself popularised the word nationalism in French 5 This has been noted by Zeev Sternhell 10 Michel Winock who titled the first part of his book Le Siecle des intellectuels Les Annees Barres The Barres Years followed by Les Annees Andre Gide and Les Annees Jean Paul Sartre 11 Pierre Andre Taguieff 12 etc He shared as common points with Paul Bourget his disdain for utilitarianism and liberalism 5 Opposed to Jean Jacques Rousseau s theory of social contract Barres considered the Nation which he used to replace the People as already historically founded it did not need a general will to establish itself thus also contrasting with Ernest Renan s definition of the Nation 13 Much closer to Herder and Fichte than to Renan in his definition of the Nation Barres opposed French centralism as did Maurras as he considered the Nation to be a multiplicity of local allegiances first to the family the village the region and ultimately to the nation state 13 Influenced by Edmund Burke Frederic Le Play and Hippolyte Taine he developed an organicist conception of the Nation which contrasted with the universalism of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen 13 According to Barres the People is not founded by an act of autonomy but find its origins in the earth le sol history institutions life and material conditions and traditions and inheritance the dead 13 His early individualism was quickly superseded by an organicist theory of the social link in which the individual is nothing society is everything 14 Barres feared miscegenation of modern times represented by Paris claiming against Michelet that it jeopardised the unity of the Nation 15 The Nation was to be balanced between various local nationalities he spoke of the Lorraine nationality as much as of the French nationality 13 through decentralisation and the call for a leader giving a Bonapartist aspect to his thought which explained his attraction for the General Boulanger and his opposition to liberal democracy 13 He pleaded for a direct democracy and personalisation of power as well as for the implementation of popular referendums as done in Switzerland 13 In this nationalist frame anti Semitism was to be the cohesive factor for a right wing mass movement 13 Contrary to popular belief Maurice Barres never used the term le grand remplacement great replacement either in his novel L appel au soldat or anywhere else However he did make use of the underlying concept namely that the French national character was being harmed by immigration of certain ethnic groups 16 Hispanophilia edit Barres was a noted hispanophile 17 Influenced by the romantic mythification of Spain he described the country as an Africa leaving your soul with a sort of furor so fast as chilli does in your mouth 18 Always passionate about the South and Orient he emphasized in his work the period of Moorish domination 19 He interpreted the Spain of the time as a nation refractory to the attempts of economic and bureaucratic rationalization threatening his own country 17 He visited Spain in 1892 1893 and 1902 capturing his vision of the country in his writings taking a particular interest in Toledo 20 Dada and Barres edit The Dadaists organised in spring 1921 the trial of Barres charged with an attack on the safety of the mind attentat a la surete de l esprit and sentenced him to 20 years of forced labour This fictitious trial also marked the dissolution of Dada its founders among whom was Tristan Tzara refusing any form of justice even if organised by Dada Final years and death edit An Orientalist romance Un jardin sur l Oronte A Garden on the Orontes which would be the basis of an opera of the same name was published in 1922 triggering what would be called la querelle de l Oronte the Orontes Quarrel Devout and sincere Catholics were shocked by the complacent skilful sometimes enchanting ways of Barres in mixing the sacred and the profane His heroine Oriante was both pagan and irresistible and this provoked revolt 21 Barres died in Neuilly sur Seine on 4 December 1923 Works in English translation editThe Undying Spirit of France Yale University Press 1917 Young Soldiers of France In The War and the Spirit of Youth Atlantic Monthly Company 1917 Colette Baudoche The Story of a Young Girl of Metz George H Doran Company 1918 Officers and Gentlemen The Atlantic Monthly Vol CXXI 1918 The Faith of France Houghton Mifflin amp Company 1918 The Sacred Hill The Macaulay Company 1929 Uprooted In The World s Greatest Books W H Wise amp Co 1941 Other edit Massia Bibikoff Our Indians at Marseilles with an Introduction by Maurice Barres Smith Elder and Company 1915 Georges Lafond Covered with Mud and Glory with a Preface by Maurice Barres Small Maynard amp Company 1918 References edit Maurice Barres and His Books The Living Age 25 November 1922 a b c Eugen Weber 1962 Nationalism Socialism and National Socialism in France French Historical Studies 2 3 273 307 doi 10 2307 285883 JSTOR 285883 a b c d e f g Biographical notice Archived 7 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine of Barres on the Academie francaise s website in French a b c d e Biographical notice Archived 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine French National Education website Nancy in French a b c d e f Pascal Ory La nouvelle droite fin de siecle in Nouvelle histoire des idees politiques dir P Ory Hachette Pluriel 1987 pp 457 465 in French 5 Lessons of the DSK Affair Bernard Henri Levy The Daily Beast 2 July 2011 a b Alain Gerard Slama professor at Sciences Po Maurras 1858 sic 1952 ou le mythe d une droite revolutionnaire Archived 26 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine article first published in L Histoire in 2002 in French Biographical notice from Chr Biet J Paul Brighelli J Luc Rispail Guide des auteurs de la critique des genres et des mouvements Magnard 1984 in French Michel Pauly Geschichte Luxemburgs p 83 2013 ISBN 9783406622250 Zeev Sternhell Maurice Barres et le nationalisme francais Bruxelles Complexe 1985 Michel Winock Le Siecle des intellectuel Paris Seuil 1997 P A Taguieff Le nationalisme des nationalistes Un probleme pour l histoire des idees politiques en France in Theories de la nation sous la direction de Gil Delannoi et de Pierre Andre Taguieff Paris Kime 1991 a b c d e f g h Brigitte Krulic professor at University of Paris X Le peuple francais chez Maurice Barres une entite insaisissable entre unite et diversite 2 February 2007 Paper read during the conference Peuple et Volk realite de fait postulat juridique organized at the University of Paris X Nanterre on 10 December 2005 in French Les Deracines Roman de l energie nationale I in Romans et voyages R Laffont Bouquins 1994 p 615 See his discourse of reception at the Academie francaise Archived 7 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine on 17 January 1907 in French Le grand remplacement de Maurice Barres Desintox ARTE https es es facebook com 28minutes videos 601716683701994 a b Gonzalez Cuevas Pedro Carlos 2007 Maurice Barres y Espana Historia Contemporanea 34 Bilbao Universidad del Pais Vasco 202 ISSN 1130 2402 Archiles Cardona Ferran 2018 Materia de Espana Imaginarios nacionales y persistencia del estereotipo espanol en la cultura francesa 1898 1936 Amnis doi 10 4000 amnis 3265 ISSN 1764 7193 Archiles Cardona 2018 Porras Medrano Adelaida 1999 Toledo o el secreto de Maurice Barres Theleme Revista Complutense de Estudios Franceses 14 Madrid Universidad Complutense de Madrid 14 15 ISSN 1139 9368 The Bookman Vol 56 1923 p 655 Further reading editBourne Randolph S 1914 Maurice Barres and the Youth of France The Atlantic Monthly Vol CXIV No 3 pp 394 399 Bregy Katherine 1927 Mysteries and Maurice Barres Commonweal p 468 Cabeen D C 1929 Maurice Barres and the Young Reviews Modern Language Notes Vol 44 No 8 pp 532 537 Cheydleur F D 1926 Maurice Barres Author and Patriot The North American Review Vol CCXXIII No 830 pp 150 156 Clyne Anthony 1920 Maurice Barres The Contemporary Review Vol CXVII pp 682 688 Curtis Michael 1959 Three Against the Third Republic Sorel Barres and Maurras Transaction Publishers Eccles F Y 1908 Maurice Barres The Dublin Review Vol CXLIII No 286 pp 244 263 Doty C Stewart 1976 From Cultural Rebellion to Counterrevolution The Politics of Maurice Barres Ohio University Press Evans Silvan 1962 Eastern Bastion The Life and Works of Maurice Barres A Short Centenary Study Ilfracombe A H Stockwell Fleming Thomas 2011 Colette Baudoche by Maurice Barres Chronicles Magazine Gide Andre 1959 The Barres Problem In Pretexts Reflections on Literature and Morality New York Meridan Books pp 74 90 Gosse Edmund 1914 M Maurice Barres In French Profiles New York Charles Scribner s Sons pp 287 295 Greaves Anthony A 1978 Maurice Barres Boston Twayne Publishers Grover M 1969 The Inheritors of Maurice Barres The Modern Language Review Vol 64 No 3 pp 529 545 Guerard Albert Leon 1916 Maurice Barres In Five Masters of French Romance London T Fisher Unwin pp 216 248 Hufnagel Henning 2015 All the Colours of the East Ideological Geography Orientalism and the Fluctuating Semantics of the East in the Works of Maurice Barres Babel 32 32 195 219 doi 10 4000 babel 4300 nbsp Huneker James 1909 The Evolution of an Egoist Maurice Barres In Egoists A Book of Supermen New York Charles Scribner s Sons pp 207 235 Hutchinson Hilary 1994 Gide and Barres Fifty Years of Protest The Modern Language Review Vol 89 No 4 pp 856 864 Maloney Wendi A 1988 Maurice Barres and the Cult of Adolescence University of Wisconsin Madison Ouston Philip 1974 The Imagination of Maurice Barres University of Toronto Press Perry Catherine 1998 Reconfiguring Wagner s Tristan Political Aesthetics in the Works of Maurice Barres French Forum Vol 23 No 3 pp 317 335 Robinson Agnes Mary Frances 1919 Maurice Barres In Twentieth Century French Writers London W Collins Sons amp Co pp 1 33 Scheifley William H 1924 Maurice Barres The Sewanee Review Vol 32 No 4 pp 464 473 Sergeant Elizabeth Shepley 1914 Maurice Barres The New Republic Vol I No 6 p 26 Stephens Winifred 1908 Maurice Barres 1862 In French Novelists of Today London John Lane The Bodley Head pp 179 220 Souday Paul 1924 Maurice Barres The Living Age Vol CCCXX No 4153 pp 269 271 Soucy Robert 1963 The Image of the Hero in the Works of Maurice Barres and Pierre Drieu la Rochelle University of Wisconsin Madison Soucy Robert 1967 Barres and Fascism French Historical Studies Vol 5 No 1 pp 67 97 Stephens Winifred 1919 The France I Know New York E P Dutton amp Company Thorold Algar 1916 The Ideas of Maurice Barres The Edinburgh Review Vol CCXXIII No 455 pp 83 99 Trevor Field 1982 Maurice Barres London Grant amp Cutler Ltd Turquet Milnes G 1921 Maurice Barres In Some Modern French Writers New York Robert M McBride amp Company pp 79 106 Shenton Gordon 1979 The Fictions of the Self The Early Works of Maurice Barres U N C Department of Romance Languages Soucy Robert 1972 Fascism in France The Case of Maurice Barres University of California Press Sternhell Zeev 1971 Barres et la Gauche Du Boulangisme a la Cocarde 1889 1895 Le Mouvement Social Vol 95 pp 77 130 Sternhell Zeev 1973 National Socialism and Antisemitism The Case of Maurice Barres Journal of Contemporary History Vol 8 No 4 pp 47 66 Suleiman Susan Rubin 1980 The Structure of Confrontation Nizan Barres Malraux MLN Vol 95 No 4 938 967 Virtanen Reino 1947 Barres and Pascal PMLA Vol 62 No 3 pp 802 823 Weber Eugen 1975 Inheritance and Dilettantism the Politics of Maurice Barres Historical Reflections Reflexions Historiques Vol 2 No 1 pp 109 131 In foreign languages editRene Jacquet 1900 Notre Maitre Maurice Barres Librairie Nilsson J Ernest Charles 1907 La Carriere de Maurice Barres Academicien E Sansot amp Cie Rene Gillouin 1907 Maurice Barres E Sansot amp Cie Henri Massis 1909 La Pensee de Maurice Barres Mercure de France Nicolas Beauduin 1910 L Evolution de Maurice Barres Quelques Uns No 1 Jean Herluison 1911 Maurice Barres et le Probleme de l Ordre Nouvelle Librairie Nationale Jacques Jary 1912 Essai sur l Art et la Psychologie de Maurice Barres Emile Paul Paul Bourget 1924 La Lecon de Barres A la Cite des Livres Francois Mauriac 1945 La Rencontre avec Barres La Table Ronde Albert Garreau 1945 Barres Defenseur de la Civilisation Editions des Loisirs Sarah Vajda 2000 Maurice Barres Flammarion External links edit nbsp Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica article Barres Maurice Maurice Barres at Wikipedia s sister projects nbsp Media from Commons nbsp Quotations from Wikiquote nbsp Data from Wikidata Works by Maurice Barres at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Maurice Barres at Internet Archive Barres Speeches at the Academie francaise in French Letters between Barres and Anna de Noailles audio in French Dreyfus Rehabilitated Archived 19 January 2020 at the Wayback Machine Barres Maurice 1862 1923 at Gallica Newspaper clippings about Maurice Barres in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Maurice Barres amp oldid 1208081008, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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