Romain Rolland
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Romain Rolland (January 29, 1866 - December 30, 1944) was a French writer. His first book was published in 1902, when he was already 36 years old. Thirteen years later, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature 1915 for his most important work, Jean-Christophe.
His mind sculpted by a passion for music and hero-worship, he sought a means of communion among men for his entire life. Because of his insistence upon justice and his humanist ideal, he looked for peace during and after the First World War in the works of the philosophers of India ("Conversations with Rabindranath Tagore", and Mohandas Gandhi), then in the new world that the Soviet Union initially wanted to achieve. But he would not find peace except in writing his works.
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Life
Rolland was born in Clamecy, Nièvre to a family of notaries; he had both peasants and wealthy townspeople in his lineage. Writing introspectively in his Voyage intérieur (1942), he sees himself as a representative of an "antique species". He will cast these ancestors in a truculent bawdy tale Colas Breugnon (1919).
Accepted to the École normale supérieure in 1886, he first studied philosophy, but his independence of spirit led him to abandon that so as not to submit to the dominant ideology. He received his degree in history in 1889 and spent two years in Rome, where his encounter with Malwida von Meysenburg -- who had been the friend of Nietzsche and of Wagner -- and his discovery of Italian masterpieces were decisive for the development of his thought. When he returned to France in 1895, he received his doctoral degree with his thesis The origins of modern lyric theatre and his doctoral dissertation, A History of Opera in Europe before Lully and Scarlatti.
A teacher, a pacifist, and a loner
He became a history teacher at Lycée Henri IV, then at the Lycée Louis le Grand, and the École française de Rome, then a professor of the History of Music at the Sorbonne, and History Professor at the École Normale Supérieure.
A demanding, yet timid, young man, he did not like teaching. Not that he was indifferent to the youth: Jean-Christophe, Olivier and their friends -- the heroes of his novels -- are young people. But with living youths, like adults, Rolland only maintained distant relationships. He was above all a writer. Assured that literature would provide him with a modest income, he resigned from the university in 1912.
Romain Rolland was a lifelong pacifist. In 1924, his book on Gandhi contributed to the latter's reputation, and the two men met in 1931.
He moved to the shores of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) to devote himself to writing. His life was interrupted by health problems, and by travels to art exhibitions. His voyage to Moscow (1935), on the invitation of Maxim Gorky, was an opportunity to meet Stalin, and he served unofficially as ambassador of the French artists to the Soviet Union.
In 1937, he came back to live in Vézelay, which, in 1940, was occupied by the Germans. During the occupation, he isolated himself in complete solitude.
Never stopping his work, in 1940, he finished his memoirs. He also placed the finishing touches on his musical research on the life of Ludwig van Beethoven. Shortly before his death, he wrote Péguy (1944), in which he examines religion and socialism through the context of his memories. He died December 30, 1944 in Vézelay.
Quotations
"If there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India....For more than 30 centuries, the tree of vision, with all its thousand branches and their millions of twigs, has sprung from this torrid land, the burning womb of the Gods. It renews itself tirelessly showing no signs of decay." [1] (http://www.ocvhs.com/publications/papersarticles/iklecture01.html), Life of Ramakrishna
"The true Vedantic spirit does not start out with a system of preconceived ideas. It possesses absolute liberty and unrivalled courage among religions with regard to the facts to be observed and the diverse hypotheses it has laid down for their coordination. Never having been hampered by a priestly order, each man has been entirely free to search wherever he pleased for the spiritual explanation of the spectacle of the universe." [2] (http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1996/3/1996-3-08.shtml), Life of Vivekananda
Bibliography
| Romain Rolland Bibliography |
| Year | Work | |
|---|---|---|
| 1888 | Amour d'enfants | |
| 1891 | Les Baglioni | Unpublished during his lifetime. |
| 1891 | Empédocle (Empedocles) |
Unpublished during his lifetime. |
| 1891 | Orsino | Unpublished during his lifetime. |
| 1892 | Le Dernier Procès de Louis Berquin (The Last Trial of Louis Berquin) |
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| 1895 | Les Origines du théâtre lyrique moderne (The origins of modern lyric theatre) |
Academic treatise, which won a prize from the Académie Française |
| 1895 | Histoire de l'opéra avant Lully et Scarlatti (A History of Opera in Europe before Lully and Scarlatti) |
Dissertation for his doctorate in Letters |
| 1895 | Cur ars picturae apud Italos XVI saeculi deciderit | Latin-language thesis on the decline in Italian oil painting in the course of the sixteenth century |
| 1897 | Saint-Louis | |
| 1897 | Aërt | Historical/philosophical drama |
| 1898 | Les Loups (The Wolves) |
Historical/philosophical drama |
| 1899 | Le Triomphe de la raison (The Triumph of Reason) |
Historical/philosophical drama |
| 1899 | Georges Danton | Historical/philosophical drama |
| 1900 | Le Poison idéaliste | |
| 1901 | Les Fêtes de Beethoven à Mayence | |
| 1902 | Le Quatorze Juillet (July 14 -- Bastille Day) |
Historical/philosophical drama |
| 1902 | François-Millet | |
| 1903 | Vie de Beethoven (Life of Beethoven) |
Biography |
| 1903 | Le temps viendra | |
| 1903 | Le Théâtre du peuple (People's Theater) |
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| 1904 | La Montespan | Historical/philosophical drama |
| 1904 - 1912 | Jean-Christophe | Cycle of ten volumes divided into three series -- Jean-Christophe, Jean-Christophe à Paris, and la Fin du voyage, published by Cahiers de la Quinzaine |
| 1904 | L'Aube | First volume of the series Jean-Christophe |
| 1904 | Le Matin (Morning) |
Second volume of the series Jean-Christophe |
| 1904 | L'Adolescent (The Adolescent) |
Third volume of the series Jean-Christophe |
| 1905 | La Révolte (The Revolt) |
Fourth volume of the series Jean-Christophe |
| 1907 | Vie de Michel-Ange (Life of Michelangelo) |
Biography |
| 1908 | Musiciens d'aujourd'hui (Contemporary Musicians) |
Collection of articles and essays about music |
| 1908 | Musiciens d'autrefois (Musicians of the Past) |
Collection of articles and essays about music |
| 1908 | La Foire sur la place | First volume of the series Jean-Christophe à Paris |
| 1908 | Antoinette | Second volume of the series Jean-Christophe à Paris |
| 1908 | Dans la maison (At Home) |
Third volume of the series Jean-Christophe à Paris |
| 1910 | Haendel | |
| 1910 | Les Amies (Friends) |
First volume of the series la Fin du voyage |
| 1911 | La Vie de Tolstoï (Life of Tolstoy) |
Biography |
| 1911 | Le Buisson ardent | Second volume of the series la Fin du voyage |
| 1912 | La Nouvelle Journée | Third volume of the series la Fin du voyage |
| 1912 | L'Humble Vie héroïque (The Humble Life of the Hero) |
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| 1915 | Au-dessus de la mêlée | Pacifist manifesto |
| 1915 | Received the Nobel Prize in Literature | |
| 1917 | Salut à la révolution russe (Salute to the Russian Revolution) |
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| 1918 | Pour l'internationale de l'Esprit (For the International of the Spirit) |
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| 1918 | L'Âge de la haine (The Age of Hatred) |
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| 1919 | Colas Breugnon | Burgundian story |
| 1919 | Les Précurseurs (The Precursors) |
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| 1920 | Founded the review Europe | |
| 1920 | Clérambault | |
| 1920 | Pierre et Luce | |
| 1921 | Pages choisies (Selected Pages) |
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| 1921 | La Révolte des machines (The Revolt of the Machines) |
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| 1922-1933 | L'Âme enchantée (The Enchanted Soul) |
Seven volumes |
| 1922 | Annette et Sylvie | First volume of l'Âme enchantée |
| 1922 | Les Vaincus | |
| 1924 | L'Été (Summer) |
Second volume of l'Âme enchantée |
| 1924 | Mahatma Gandhi | |
| 1925 | Le Jeu de l'amour et de la mort (The Game of Love and Death) |
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| 1926 | Pâques fleuries | |
| 1927 | Mère et fils (Mother and Child) |
Third volume of l'Âme enchantée |
| 1928 | Léonides | |
| 1928 | De l'Héroïque à l'Appassionata (From the Heroic to the Passionate) |
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| 1929 | Essai sur la mystique de l'action (A study of the Mystique of Action) |
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| 1929 | L'Inde vivante (Living India) |
Essays |
| 1929 | Vie de Ramakrishna (Life of Ramakrishna) |
Essays |
| 1930 | Vie de Vivekananda (Life of Vivekananda) |
Essays |
| 1930 | L'Évangile universel | Essays |
| 1930 | Goethe et Beethoven | Essay |
| 1933 | L'Annonciatrice | |
| 1935 | Quinze Ans de combat | |
| 1936 | Compagnons de route | |
| 1937 | Le Chant de la Résurrection (Song of the Resurrection) |
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| 1938 | Les Pages immortelles de Rousseau (The Immortal Pages of Rousseau) |
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| 1939 | Robespierre | Historical/philosophical drama |
| 1942 | Le Voyage intérieur (The Interior Voyage) |
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| 1943 | La Cathédrale interrompue (The Interrupted Cathedral) |
Volumes I and II |
| 1945 | Péguy | Posthumous publication |
| 1945 | La Cathédrale interrompue | Volume III, posthumous |