| Henry Céard: Idéaliste Détrompé Contributor(s): Frazee, Ronald (Author) |
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ISBN: 1487598793 ISBN-13: 9781487598792 Publisher: University of Toronto Press OUR PRICE: $28.45 Product Type: Paperback Language: French Published: December 1963 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Literary Figures - Literary Criticism | European - French |
| Physical Information: 0.46" H x 6" W x 9" (0.67 lbs) 200 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - French |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Here for the first time is an authoritative account of the life and literary activity of a long-neglected writer of the French naturalist school. Its appearance now is especially timely in view of the recent revival of interest in Zola, Maupassant and Huysmans, and the publication of the complete Goncourt Journals. C rard's written works were virtually neglected by his contemporaries as well as by most historians of the naturalist movement. However, his novels, short stories, and plays had good critical receptions, and in providing this study of the author, as well as a comprehensive bibliography of all his works, Mr. Frazee is performing a valuable service for students of literature. As an artist C rard was perhaps less powerful than Zola or Goncourt, but one appreciates, as Mr. Frazee has noted, "la pr dominance de l'esprit d'analyse sur l'esprit d'imagination." An important contribution was his early experimental novel Une belle journ e; this explored in depth a single day in a character's life, and was the first of a number of such novels, which culminated in Joyce's Ulysses. While attempting to give C rard his due as an artist Mr. Frazee, in seeking to discover the relations between this paradoxical personality and his work, has not hesitated to point out C rard's personal failings. C rard was an intriguing blend of deceptive simplicity and surprising complexity, and he showed a pessimism and resignation, typical of the fin de si cle, which were evidence of the influence of Schopenhauer. Because secondary writers often give a better picture of their times than their better-known contemporaries, this biography, too, is able to shed new light on the last thirty years of the nineteenth century while providing an important guide for today's scholars and the future investigators of an important area of French literature. |
Contributor Bio(s): Frazee, Ronald: - Ronald Frazee (1896-1968) was educated at the University of Chicago, the Sorbonne, and Johns Hopkins University, where he studied English Language and Literature as well as comparative literature. He taught at New Mexico Highlands University and was the Director of Fondation des Etats-Unis at the Université de Paris. |