GOURMONT Remy de (1858-1915). - Lot 82

Lot n° 82
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600 - 800 EUR
GOURMONT Remy de (1858-1915). - Lot 82
GOURMONT Remy de (1858-1915). MANUSCRIT autograph signed " Remy de Gourmont ", L'Académie Française, Paris October 10, 1907; 19 pages in-8, bound in half garnet morocco with corners. Interesting article on the French Academy, in the form of a letter to the director of La Nacion. For some time now, the Academy has been talked about even in circles where it was never mentioned, because there has just been "a candidacy whose success interests all the literary youth, all the friends of new poetry, that of Henri de RÉGNIER, whose competitor for André THEURIET's chair is Jean RICHEPIN [it is Richepin who will be elected, Henri de Régnier will be elected only in 1911]. It is also that several illustrious academicians, BERTHELOT, SULLY-PRUDHOMME, BRUNETIÈRE, have just died in a short time"... After evoking the prestige of the title, Gourmont reviews the members of the Academy: François COPPÉE, the most popular, sympathetic and generous; Anatole FRANCE and Jules LEMAÎTRE, scholars and dreamers; "Eugène" [sic!ROSTAND, famous for his Cyrano and, abroad, "the best accredited representative of French poetry"; dramatic authors, always favored by the Academy, such as "the ancestors" SARDOU and HALÉVY, or the skilful CLARETIE, or the three young people, LAVEDAN, HERVIEU, DONNAY, whose work he characterizes... Then he evokes the "very restricted" group of novelists: Paul BOURGET, chosen for his moral novels and philosophical essays, Maurice BARRÈS, chosen perhaps especially for "his political attitude", Pierre LOTI, who continues the tradition of the military or naval writers... He speaks briefly of FAGUET and Gaston BOISSIER, then moves on to the "group of historians", which contains, "among many rather obscure names, a few brilliant ones": HOUSSAYE, VOGÜÉ and his "shadow", a homonymous archaeologist cousin, LAVISSE etc. The Academy "does not want to be an exclusively literary company, but a meeting of superior or distinguished men in all genres", and its tendencies would be rather reactionary. "There is there for its future, for its security, a very great danger".
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