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| caption          = <center>''Portrait de M. de Sénancour'' (1846)</center>
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| birth_date      = {{Birth date|1770|11|6}}
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| movement        = [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%A9romantisme Pre-Romanticism]
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{{French literature sidebar}}
'''Étienne Pivert de Senancour''' (sometimes written '''Sénancour''', 5/6 November 1770–10 January 1846){{refn|group=lower-alpha|There is some confusion as to Senancour’s exact name. It sometimes appears as “Étienne Jean Baptiste Pierre Ignace Pivert de Senancour,” even with the title of vicomte attached to it, but there is no surviving, definitive birth record for him, the civil registers for the years preceding 1860 all having been destroyed during the Paris Commune in May 1871. His biographer Merlant spells Senancour with an ''accent aigu'' over the ''e''; the Bibliotheque Nationale lists him in their records simply as “Étienne Pivert de Senancour.” A medallion made in 1833, which can be seen above, even has his name inscribed as "Sénancourt," only further adding to the confusion.}} was a [[France|French]] [[Essay|essayist]] remembered primarily for his [[epistolary novel]] ''[[Obermann (novel)|Obermann]]''. He also wrote using the [[Pen name|pseudonyms]] ''Le citoyen Pivert'', ''Rêveur des Alpes'', and ''Le solitaire des Vosges''.<ref name=":0">Joachim Merlant, ''Sénancour: (1770-1846): poète, penseur religieux et publiciste: sa vie, son oeuvre, son influence: documents inconnus ou inédits'' (Paris: Fischbacher, 1907).</ref><ref>H.G. Schenk, ''The Mind of the European Romantics'' (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1966), xx.</ref><ref>Cherie D. Abbey & Janet Mullane (eds.), N''ineteenth-Century Literature Critcism, Vol. 16: Exccerpts from Criticism of the Works of Novelists, Poets, Playwrights, Short Story Writers, Philosophers, and Other Creative Writers Who Died Between 1800 and 1899, from the First Published Critical Appraisals to Current Evaluations'' (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1987), 416.</ref><ref>Étienne Pivert de Senancour, ''Aldomen, ou Le bonheur dans l'obscurité'' (Paris: Chez Leprieur, Libraire, 1794).</ref>
'''Étienne Pivert de Senancour''' (sometimes written '''Sénancour''', 5/6 November 1770–10 January 1846){{refn|group=lower-alpha|There is some confusion as to Senancour’s exact name. It sometimes appears as “Étienne Jean Baptiste Pierre Ignace Pivert de Senancour,” even with the title of vicomte attached to it, but there is no surviving, definitive birth record for him, the civil registers for the years preceding 1860 all having been destroyed during the Paris Commune in May 1871. His biographer Merlant spells Senancour with an ''accent aigu'' over the ''e''; the Bibliotheque Nationale lists him in their records simply as “Étienne Pivert de Senancour.”}} was a French essayist remembered primarily for his [[epistolary novel]] ''[[Obermann (novel)|Obermann]]''. He also wrote using the pseudonyms ''Le citoyen Pivert'', ''Rêveur des Alpes'', and ''Le solitaire des Vosges''.<ref>Joachim Merlant, ''Sénancour: (1770-1846): poète, penseur religieux et publiciste: sa vie, son oeuvre, son influence: documents inconnus ou inédits'' (Paris: Fischbacher, 1907).</ref><ref>H.G. Schenk, ''The Mind of the European Romantics'' (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1966), xx.</ref><ref>Cherie D. Abbey & Janet Mullane (eds.), N''ineteenth-Century Literature Critcism, Vol. 16: Exccerpts from Criticism of the Works of Novelists, Poets, Playwrights, Short Story Writers, Philosophers, and Other Creative Writers Who Died Between 1800 and 1899, from the First Published Critical Appraisals to Current Evaluations'' (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1987), 416.</ref><ref>Étienne Pivert de Senancour, ''Aldomen, ou Le bonheur dans l'obscurité'' (Paris: Chez Leprieur, Libraire, 1794).</ref>


==Life==
==Life==
Senancour was born in Paris, the only child of Claude-Laurent and Marie-Catherine Pivert, ''née'' Pivert.{{refn|group=lower-alpha|Despite his parents apparently having the same surname, there is no evidence to suggest that there was anything improper about their union.}} His father, a ''contrôleur alternatif des Rentes de l’Hôtel de Ville'',{{refn|group=lower-alpha|An official whose job it was to check the validity of interest payments.}} having purchased the office in 1774, added “de Senancour” to his surname.
Senancour was born in [[Paris]], the only child of first cousins Claude-Laurent and Marie-Catherine Pivert. His father, a ''contrôleur alternatif des Rentes de l’Hôtel de Ville'',{{refn|group=lower-alpha|An official whose job it was to check the validity of interest payments. The position also conferred upon him the title of ''[[conseiller du roi]].''}} having purchased the office in 1774, added “de Senancour” to his surname. His parents shared a deep devotion to [[Catholicism]], but came to regret their marriage and instead both wished for the life of the [[cloister]], a calling they hoped their son might follow instead. Senancour’s mother provided her son with a [[Jansenist]] education, before sending him to the [[University of Paris|Collège de la Marche]]. His father was emotionally distant, while by contrast his mother was frequently fussy and overly attentive; the result was a melancholy childhood filled with boredom and solitude. The family was quite wealthy, and lived on the [[Rue Saint-Denis]], near [[Saint-Sépulcre]], the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Michel Orcel, "Rêveries d’un corps dans les Alpes (Senancour)" (Éditions Belin: ''Po&sie'' 2006/2 N° 116), 124.</ref><ref>[https://essentiels.bnf.fr/fr/article/e3f412b0-45d5-46db-bab2-c3707185e4dd-etienne-senancour-melancolique-et-preromantique "Étienne de Senancour, mélancolique et préromantique"] at BnF Essentiels.</ref><ref>Jean-Marc Vasseur. “Étienne Pivert de Senancour dans le Valois.” ''Revue d’Histoire Littéraire de La France'' 115, no. 1 (2015): 169–89. <nowiki>http://www.jstor.org/stable/24722107</nowiki>.</ref>


Much of Senancour's childhood was spent in a state of ill-health. He began his education with a [[curé]] in the vicinity of [[Ermenonville]] before being sent to the [[University of Paris|Collège de la Marche]]. His father, Claude-Laurent Pivert, a [[Contrôleur des Rentes]] and [[Conseil du Roi]], wanted him to enter the seminary of [[Saint-Sulpice (Paris)|Saint-Sulpice]] to become a [[priest]]. To avoid a profession for which he had no vocation, Senancour, with the help of his mother, fled to Switzerland in 1789. On 11 September 1790, he married Marie-Françoise Daguet with whom he had two children: a daughter [[Eulalie de Senancour|Eulalie]] (1791) who would later follow in her father's footsteps and become a writer, and a son, Florian-Julien (1793), who went on to pursue a career in the military.{{Citation needed|date=December 2019}} The marriage was not a happy one; his wife refused to accompany him to the Alpine solitude he desired, and they settled in [[Fribourg]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
In 1785, Senancour began four unhappy years at the Collège de la Marche, where he felt out of place and withdrew further into himself. When he was not at school or at home, he studied with a [[curé]] who lived in the vicinity of [[Ermenonville]] or [[Senlis]]. This would prove to be an important turning point in his life: it was here that Senancour discovered his love of nature, of solitude, and the philosophy of [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]]. His father wanted him to enter the seminary of [[Saint-Sulpice (Paris)|Saint-Sulpice]] to become a [[priest]]. To avoid a profession for which he had no vocation, Senancour, with the help of his mother, fled to Switzerland in 1789. On 11 September 1790, he married Marie-Françoise Daguet with whom he had two children: a daughter [[Eulalie de Senancour|Eulalie]] (1791) who would later follow in her father's footsteps and become a writer, and a son, Florian-Julien (1793), who went on to pursue a career in the military. The marriage was not a happy one; his wife refused to accompany him to the Alpine solitude he desired, and they settled in [[Fribourg]].<ref name=":0" />


His absence from France at the outbreak of the [[French Revolution|Revolution]] was interpreted as hostility to the new government, and his name was included in the list of [[émigrés]]. He visited France from time to time by stealth, but he only succeeded in saving the remnants of a considerable fortune. In 1799 he published in Paris his ''[[Rêveries sur la nature primitive de l'homme]]'', a book containing impassioned descriptive passages which mark him out as a precursor of the [[romantic movement]]. His parents and his wife died before the close of the century, and Senancour was in Paris in 1801 when he began ''Obermann'', which was finished in Switzerland two years later, and printed in 1804. This singular book, which has never lost its popularity with a limited class of readers, was followed in the next year by a treatise ''[[De l'amour (1806 book)|De l'amour]]'', in which he attacked the accepted social conventions.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} During this period, he worked at the magazine ''[[Mercure de France]]'' where he made the acquaintance of [[Louis-Sébastien Mercier]] and [[Charles Nodier]].
His absence from France at the outbreak of the [[French Revolution|Revolution]] was interpreted as hostility to the new government, and his name was included in the list of [[émigrés]]. He visited France from time to time by stealth, but he only succeeded in saving the remnants of a considerable fortune. In 1799 he published in Paris his ''[[Rêveries sur la nature primitive de l'homme]]'', a book containing impassioned descriptive passages which mark him out as a precursor of the [[romantic movement]]. His parents and his wife died before the close of the century, and Senancour was in Paris in 1801 when he began ''Obermann'', which was finished in Switzerland two years later, and printed in 1804. This singular book, which has never lost its popularity with a limited class of readers, was followed in the next year by a treatise ''[[De l'amour (1806 book)|De l'amour]]'', in which he attacked the accepted social conventions. During this period, he worked at the magazine ''[[Mercure de France]]'' where he made the acquaintance of [[Louis-Sébastien Mercier]] and [[Charles Nodier]].


[[File:Portrait_d'Etienne_Pivert_de_Sénancourt_(1770-1846),_écrivain,_S365(2).jpg|thumb|left|<center>Medallion of Sénancourt [''sic'']</center>by Pierre-Jean David d'Angers & Louis Richard]]
Senancour might have spent his life writing in complete obscurity were it not for a charge leveled against him by a public prosecutor for slandering religion in the second edition of his ''Résumé de l'histoire des traditions morales et religieuses'' (1827) wherein he described [[Jesus]] as a "youthful sage". He was initially found guilty and sentenced to nine months in prison and fined 300 francs, but the penalties were dropped on appeal. Attention to the case from the liberal press increased Senancour's standing, and many of his works were rediscovered and republished. The author revised and expanded ''Obermann'' for the 1833 edition.
Senancour might have spent his life writing in complete obscurity were it not for a charge leveled against him by a public prosecutor for slandering religion in the second edition of his ''Résumé de l'histoire des traditions morales et religieuses'' (1827) wherein he described [[Jesus]] as a "youthful sage". He was initially found guilty and sentenced to nine months in prison and fined 300 francs, but the penalties were dropped on appeal. Attention to the case from the liberal press increased Senancour's standing, and many of his works were rediscovered and republished. The author revised and expanded ''Obermann'' for the 1833 edition.


''Obermann'', which is to a great extent inspired by [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]], was edited and praised successively by [[Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve|Sainte-Beuve]] and by [[George Sand]], and had a considerable influence both in France and England. It is a series of letters supposed to be written by a [[Solitude|solitary]] and [[Melancholia|melancholy]] person, whose headquarters are placed in a lonely valley of the [[Jura mountains|Jura]]. The idiosyncrasy of the book in the large class of [[The Sorrows of Young Werther|Wertherian]]-[[George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron|Byronic]] literature consists in the fact that the hero, instead of feeling the vanity of things, recognizes his own inability to be and do what he wishes. Danish literary critic [[Georg Morris Cohen Brandes|Georg Brandes]] pointed out that while [[François-René de Chateaubriand|Chateaubriand]]'s [[novella]] [[René (novella)|''René'']] was appreciated by some of the ruling spirits of the century, ''Obermann'' was understood only by highly gifted, sensitive temperaments, usually strangers to success.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
''Obermann'', which is to a great extent inspired by Rousseau, was edited and praised successively by [[Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve|Sainte-Beuve]] and by [[George Sand]], and had a considerable influence both in France and England. It is a series of letters supposed to be written by a [[Solitude|solitary]] and [[Melancholia|melancholy]] person, whose headquarters are placed in a lonely valley of the [[Jura mountains|Jura]]. The idiosyncrasy of the book in the large class of [[The Sorrows of Young Werther|Wertherian]]-[[George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron|Byronic]] literature consists in the fact that the hero, instead of feeling the vanity of things, recognizes his own inability to be and do what he wishes. Danish literary critic [[Georg Morris Cohen Brandes|Georg Brandes]] pointed out that while [[François-René de Chateaubriand|Chateaubriand]]'s [[novella]] [[René (novella)|''René'']] was appreciated by some of the ruling spirits of the century, ''Obermann'' was understood only by highly gifted, sensitive temperaments, usually strangers to success.


Senancour was tinged to some extent with the older [[philosophe]] form of [[Free thought|free-thinking]], and had no sympathy with the [[Catholic]] reaction. Having no resources but his pen, Senancour was driven to hack-work during the period which elapsed between his return to France (1803) and his death at Saint-Cloud; but some of the charm of ''Obermann'' is to be found in the ''[[Libres Méditations d'un solitaire inconnu]]''. [[Adolphe Thiers|Thiers]] and [[Abel-François Villemain|Villemain]] successively obtained for Senancour from [[Louis-Philippe of France|Louis Philippe]] pensions which enabled him to pass his last days in comfort. Senancour also authored the comedic drama ''[[Valombré]]'' (1807), and late in life wrote a second novel in letters entitled ''[[Isabelle (novel)|Isabelle]]'' (1833). He composed his own epitaph, "''Eternité, sois mon asile''".{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
Senancour was tinged to some extent with the older [[philosophe]] form of [[Free thought|free-thinking]], and had no sympathy with the [[Catholic]] reaction. Having no resources but his pen, Senancour was driven to hack-work during the period which elapsed between his return to France (1803) and his death at Saint-Cloud; but some of the charm of ''Obermann'' is to be found in the ''[[Libres Méditations d'un solitaire inconnu]]''. [[Adolphe Thiers|Thiers]] and [[Abel-François Villemain|Villemain]] successively obtained for Senancour from [[Louis-Philippe of France|Louis Philippe]] pensions which enabled him to pass his last days in comfort. Senancour also authored the comedic drama ''[[Valombré]]'' (1807), and late in life wrote a second novel in letters entitled ''[[Isabelle (novel)|Isabelle]]'' (1833). He composed his own epitaph, "''Eternité, sois mon asile''".
 
Senancour is immortalized for English readers in two poems by [[Matthew Arnold]] entitled ''Stanzas in Memory of the Author of Obermann'' and ''Obermann Once More.''
 
''Obermann'' has been translated into English three times: in its entirety by [[A. E. Waite]] (1903) and J. Anthony Barnes (1910), and in selections by Jessie Peabody Frothingham (1901).<ref>See the preface by Sainte-Beuve to his edition (1833, 2 vols.) of ''Obermann'', and two articles ''Portraits contemporains'' (vol. 1); ''Un Précurseur: Senancour'' (1897) by [[Jules Levallois]], who received much information from Senancour's daughter, Eulalie de Senancour, herself a journalist and novelist; a biographical and critical study ''Senancour'', by J. Merlant (1907); and ''Senancour, dernier disciple de Rousseau'' by [[Zvi Lévy]].</ref>
 
==In music==
Between 1848 and 1854, [[Franz Liszt]] composed ''Vallée d'Obermann'', one of the pieces for piano of the suite ''Première année: Suisse'', from the œuvre ''[[Années de pèlerinage]]'', inspired by Senancour's most famous novel.


==Works==
==Works==
* (1792) ''Les Premiers Ages. Incertitudes humaines''  
* (1792) ''[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8614606m '''Les Premiers Ages. Incertitudes humaines''']''
* (1793) ''Sur les Générations actuelles, absurdités humaines''
* (1793) ''[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1040201c '''Sur les Générations actuelles, absurdités humaines''']''
* (1795) ''Aldomen ou le bonheur dans l'obscurité''  
* (1794) ''[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k118989k '''Aldomen ou le bonheur dans l'obscurité''']''
* (1799) ''Rêveries sur la nature primitive de l'homme''  
* (1797) ''[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k105088b Rêveries sur la nature primitive de l'homme]''
* (1804) ''Oberman'' (changed to ''Obermann'' in subsequent editions)
* (1804) ''Oberman'' (changed to ''Obermann'' in subsequent editions)
* (1806) ''De l'amour''  
* (1806) ''De l'amour''  
* (1807) ''Valombré''  
* (1807) ''Valombré''  
* (1814) ''Lettre d'un habitant des Vosges sur MM. Buonaparte, de Chateaubriand, Grégoire, Barruel''  
* (1814) ''Lettre d'un habitant des Vosges sur MM. Buonaparte, de Chateaubriand, Grégoire, Barruel''  
* (1815) ''De Napoléon''
* (1815) ''[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6307393s '''De Napoléon''']''
* (1815) ''Quatorze juillet 1815''
* (1815) ''Quatorze juillet 1815''
* (1816) ''Observations critiques sur l'ouvrage intitulé "Génie du christianisme", suivies de réflexions sur les écrits de Monsieur de Bonald''  
* (1816) ''Observations critiques sur l'ouvrage intitulé "Génie du christianisme", suivies de réflexions sur les écrits de Monsieur de Bonald''  
* (1819) ''Libres Méditations d'un solitaire inconnu''  
* (1819) ''Libres Méditations d'un solitaire inconnu''  
* (1824) ''Résumé de l'histoire de la Chine''  
* (1824) ''[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6208831g '''Résumé de l'histoire de la Chine''']''  
* (1825) ''Résumé de l'histoire des traditions morales et religieuses''  
* (1825) ''[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9810181t '''Résumé de l'histoire des traditions morales et religieuses''']''  
* (1833) ''Petit vocabulaire de simple vérité''
* (1833) ''Petit vocabulaire de simple vérité''
* (1833) ''Isabelle''
* (1833) ''Isabelle''
Line 92: Line 85:
==References==
==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{Reflist}}
* France, Peter (Ed.) (1995). ''The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French''. Oxford: Clarendon Press.  {{ISBN|0-19-866125-8}}.
{{EB1911|wstitle=Senancour, Étienne Pivert de|volume=24|page=634}}
* Gonthier, Albert (1999). ''Montreux et ses hôtes illustres''. Saint-Gingolph: Editions Cabédita. {{ISBN|2-88295-267-8}}.
* Schenk, H. G. (1966). ''The Mind of the European Romantics: an Essay in Cultural History''. London: Constable.
* {{EB1911|wstitle=Senancour, Étienne Pivert de|volume=24|page=634}}
 
==External links==
{{NIE Poster|Senancour, Étienne Pivert de|Étienne Pivert de Senancour}}
* {{Internet Archive author|sname=Étienne-Jean-Baptiste-Pierre-Ignace Pivert de Senancour |sopt=w}}
* [http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/actualites/celebrations2004/senancour.htm Célébrations nationales 2004: Senancour publie Oberman]
 
{{Romanticism}}
 
{{Authority control}}
 
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pivert de Senancour, Etienne}}
[[index.php?title=Category:1770 births]]
[[index.php?title=Category:1846 deaths]]
[[index.php?title=Category:University of Paris alumni]]
[[index.php?title=Category:Writers from Paris]]
[[index.php?title=Category:18th-century French writers]]
[[index.php?title=Category:18th-century French male writers]]
[[index.php?title=Category:19th-century French novelists]]
[[index.php?title=Category:19th-century French male novelists]]
[[index.php?title=Category:French essayists]]
[[index.php?title=Category:French philosophers]]

Latest revision as of 07:27, 16 October 2026

Étienne Pivert de Senancour
Portrait de M. de Sénancour (1846)
Born(1770-11-06)November 6, 1770
Paris
DiedJanuary 10, 1846(1846-01-10) (aged 75)
St. Cloud
OccupationWriter
Notable workObermann
MovementPre-Romanticism
SpouseMarie-Françoise Daguet
ChildrenAgathe Eulalie Ursule Pivert de Senancour
Jacques Balthazar Pivert de Senancour
Florian Julien Pivert de Senancour
Parent(s)Claude-Laurent Pivert
Marie-Catherine Pivert

Étienne Pivert de Senancour (sometimes written Sénancour, 5/6 November 1770–10 January 1846)[a] was a French essayist remembered primarily for his epistolary novel Obermann. He also wrote using the pseudonyms Le citoyen Pivert, Rêveur des Alpes, and Le solitaire des Vosges.[1][2][3][4]

Life

Senancour was born in Paris, the only child of first cousins Claude-Laurent and Marie-Catherine Pivert. His father, a contrôleur alternatif des Rentes de l’Hôtel de Ville,[b] having purchased the office in 1774, added “de Senancour” to his surname. His parents shared a deep devotion to Catholicism, but came to regret their marriage and instead both wished for the life of the cloister, a calling they hoped their son might follow instead. Senancour’s mother provided her son with a Jansenist education, before sending him to the Collège de la Marche. His father was emotionally distant, while by contrast his mother was frequently fussy and overly attentive; the result was a melancholy childhood filled with boredom and solitude. The family was quite wealthy, and lived on the Rue Saint-Denis, near Saint-Sépulcre, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.[1][5][6][7]

In 1785, Senancour began four unhappy years at the Collège de la Marche, where he felt out of place and withdrew further into himself. When he was not at school or at home, he studied with a curé who lived in the vicinity of Ermenonville or Senlis. This would prove to be an important turning point in his life: it was here that Senancour discovered his love of nature, of solitude, and the philosophy of Rousseau. His father wanted him to enter the seminary of Saint-Sulpice to become a priest. To avoid a profession for which he had no vocation, Senancour, with the help of his mother, fled to Switzerland in 1789. On 11 September 1790, he married Marie-Françoise Daguet with whom he had two children: a daughter Eulalie (1791) who would later follow in her father's footsteps and become a writer, and a son, Florian-Julien (1793), who went on to pursue a career in the military. The marriage was not a happy one; his wife refused to accompany him to the Alpine solitude he desired, and they settled in Fribourg.[1]

His absence from France at the outbreak of the Revolution was interpreted as hostility to the new government, and his name was included in the list of émigrés. He visited France from time to time by stealth, but he only succeeded in saving the remnants of a considerable fortune. In 1799 he published in Paris his Rêveries sur la nature primitive de l'homme, a book containing impassioned descriptive passages which mark him out as a precursor of the romantic movement. His parents and his wife died before the close of the century, and Senancour was in Paris in 1801 when he began Obermann, which was finished in Switzerland two years later, and printed in 1804. This singular book, which has never lost its popularity with a limited class of readers, was followed in the next year by a treatise De l'amour, in which he attacked the accepted social conventions. During this period, he worked at the magazine Mercure de France where he made the acquaintance of Louis-Sébastien Mercier and Charles Nodier.

Medallion of Sénancourt [sic]
by Pierre-Jean David d'Angers & Louis Richard

Senancour might have spent his life writing in complete obscurity were it not for a charge leveled against him by a public prosecutor for slandering religion in the second edition of his Résumé de l'histoire des traditions morales et religieuses (1827) wherein he described Jesus as a "youthful sage". He was initially found guilty and sentenced to nine months in prison and fined 300 francs, but the penalties were dropped on appeal. Attention to the case from the liberal press increased Senancour's standing, and many of his works were rediscovered and republished. The author revised and expanded Obermann for the 1833 edition.

Obermann, which is to a great extent inspired by Rousseau, was edited and praised successively by Sainte-Beuve and by George Sand, and had a considerable influence both in France and England. It is a series of letters supposed to be written by a solitary and melancholy person, whose headquarters are placed in a lonely valley of the Jura. The idiosyncrasy of the book in the large class of Wertherian-Byronic literature consists in the fact that the hero, instead of feeling the vanity of things, recognizes his own inability to be and do what he wishes. Danish literary critic Georg Brandes pointed out that while Chateaubriand's novella René was appreciated by some of the ruling spirits of the century, Obermann was understood only by highly gifted, sensitive temperaments, usually strangers to success.

Senancour was tinged to some extent with the older philosophe form of free-thinking, and had no sympathy with the Catholic reaction. Having no resources but his pen, Senancour was driven to hack-work during the period which elapsed between his return to France (1803) and his death at Saint-Cloud; but some of the charm of Obermann is to be found in the Libres Méditations d'un solitaire inconnu. Thiers and Villemain successively obtained for Senancour from Louis Philippe pensions which enabled him to pass his last days in comfort. Senancour also authored the comedic drama Valombré (1807), and late in life wrote a second novel in letters entitled Isabelle (1833). He composed his own epitaph, "Eternité, sois mon asile".

Works

Notes

  1. ↑ There is some confusion as to Senancour’s exact name. It sometimes appears as “Étienne Jean Baptiste Pierre Ignace Pivert de Senancour,” even with the title of vicomte attached to it, but there is no surviving, definitive birth record for him, the civil registers for the years preceding 1860 all having been destroyed during the Paris Commune in May 1871. His biographer Merlant spells Senancour with an accent aigu over the e; the Bibliotheque Nationale lists him in their records simply as “Étienne Pivert de Senancour.” A medallion made in 1833, which can be seen above, even has his name inscribed as "Sénancourt," only further adding to the confusion.
  2. ↑ An official whose job it was to check the validity of interest payments. The position also conferred upon him the title of conseiller du roi.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Joachim Merlant, Sénancour: (1770-1846): poète, penseur religieux et publiciste: sa vie, son oeuvre, son influence: documents inconnus ou inédits (Paris: Fischbacher, 1907).
  2. ↑ H.G. Schenk, The Mind of the European Romantics (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1966), xx.
  3. ↑ Cherie D. Abbey & Janet Mullane (eds.), Nineteenth-Century Literature Critcism, Vol. 16: Exccerpts from Criticism of the Works of Novelists, Poets, Playwrights, Short Story Writers, Philosophers, and Other Creative Writers Who Died Between 1800 and 1899, from the First Published Critical Appraisals to Current Evaluations (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1987), 416.
  4. ↑ Étienne Pivert de Senancour, Aldomen, ou Le bonheur dans l'obscurité (Paris: Chez Leprieur, Libraire, 1794).
  5. ↑ Michel Orcel, "Rêveries d’un corps dans les Alpes (Senancour)" (Éditions Belin: Po&sie 2006/2 N° 116), 124.
  6. ↑ "Étienne de Senancour, mélancolique et préromantique" at BnF Essentiels.
  7. ↑ Jean-Marc Vasseur. “Étienne Pivert de Senancour dans le Valois.” Revue d’Histoire Littéraire de La France 115, no. 1 (2015): 169–89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24722107.

Wikisource This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Senancour, Étienne Pivert de". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 634.

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