René François Nicolas Marie Bazin (26 December 1853 – 20 July 1932)[1] was a French novelist.[2]
Biography
Born at Angers, he studied law in Paris, and on his return to Angers became Professor of Law in the Catholic university.[3] In 1876, Bazin married Aline Bricard. The couple had two sons and six daughters. He contributed to Parisian journals a series of sketches of provincial life and descriptions of travel, and wrote Stephanette (1884), but he made his reputation with Une Tache d'Encre (A Spot of Ink) (1888), which received a prize from the Academy.[4] He was admitted to the Académie française on 28 April 1904,[3] to replace Ernest Legouvé.
René Bazin was a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, and was President of the Corporation des Publicistes Chretiens.[5]
Works
Other novels:
- Les Noëllet (1890; English tr., This, My Son, 1908)
- La Sarcelle Bleue (1892)
- Madame Corentine (1893; English tr., Those of his own Household, 1914)
- Humble Amour (1894)
- De toute son âme (1897; English tr., Redemption, 1908)
- La Terre qui Meurt (1899; English tr., Autumn Glory, 1901), a picture of the decay of peasant farming set in La Vendée; it was an indirect plea for the development of provincial France
- Les Oberlé (1901; English tr., Children of Alsace), a story which was dramatized and acted in the following year
- L'Âme Alsacienne (1903)
- Donatienne (1903)
- L'Isolée (1905; English tr., The Nun, 1908)
- Le blé qui lève (1907; English tr., The Coming Harvest, 1908)
- Mémoires d'une vieille fille (1908)
- La Barrière (1910; English tr., The Barrier)
- Davidée Birot (1912; English tr. by Mary D. Frost)
- Gingolph l'Abandonné (1914)
- La Closerie de Champsdolent (1917)
- Récits du Temps de Guerre (1919)
- Les Nouveaux Oberlé (1919), regarded as a masterpiece by some
- Le Mariage de Mlle. Gimel; La Barriére; La Douce France; Histoire de vingt quatre sonnettes; and Ferdinand Jacques Hervé Bazin (1921)
- Charles de Foucauld, Explorateur (1921; English tr., Charles de Foucauld, Hermit and Explorer, 1923)
A volume of Questions littéraires et sociales appeared in 1906. He also wrote books of travel, including a À l'aventure (1891), Sicile (1892), Terre d'Espagne (1896), and Croquis de France et d'Orient (1901). Nord-Sud Amérique, etc. (1913). Bazin is known to English and American readers for rendering the Italy of his time, The Italians of To-Day (1904).
After 1914 he published two volumes of war sketches, Pages religieuses (1915) and Aujourd'hui et demain (1916).
Notes
- ^ Ryan, Mary (1932). "René Bazin 1853-1932," Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 21, No. 84, p. 627.
- ^ Annabelle Taylor Swager (1933). The Social Aspects of the Novels of René Bazin. Indiana University. p. 8.
- ^ a b Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Lavisse, Ernest (1905). Preface to The Ink-stain. Paris: Maison Mazarin, p. v.
- ^ Hoehn, Matthew (1948). "René Bazin, 1853–1934." In: Catholic Authors: Contemporary Biographical Sketches. Newark, N.J.: St. Mary's Abbey, p. 34.
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bazin, René". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922). . Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company.
Further reading
- Coll, Jessie Pauline (1936). The Novels of René Bazin. University of Oklahoma.
- Doumic, René (1899). "René Bazin." In: Contemporary French Novelists. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, pp. 377–402.
- Gosse, Edmund (1905). "M. René Bazin." In: French Profiles. New York : Dodd, Mead and company, pp. 266–291.
- Mauriac, François (1931). René Bazin. Paris: F. Alcan.
- Moreau, Abel (1957). René Bazin. Paris: Caritas.
- Stimson, Henry A. (1904). "The Novels of René Bazin," The Booklovers Magazine, Vol. IV, pp. 745–747
- Waite, Alice Webber (1928). René Bazin: An Idealistic Realist. University of Nebraska (Lincoln Campus).
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