Jules Romains

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Romains, Jules (pseud. of Louis Farigoule) (1885-1972). French novelist, dramatist, poet, and essayist, elected to the Académie Française in 1946. Early in his career he was associated with a shortlived artistic community, the Groupe de l' Abbaye, which published his poems, La Vie unanime, in 1908. These poems, and much of his later verse and prose, were influenced by Unanimist theories of social groups and collective psychology. Before the outbreak of war in 1914 he published more collections of poetry, a verse play, L'Armée dans la ville (1911), and two novels, Mort de quelqu'un (1911) and the farcical Les Copains (1913).

In 1919 Romains retired from teaching to become a full-time writer. He published more poetry, a filmscript, Donogoo Tonka (1920), and another verse play, Cromedeyre-le-vieil (1920). The farcical comedies Knock, ou le Triomphe de la médecine (1923), M. Le Trouhadec saisi par la débauche (1923), and Le Mariage de M. Le Trouhadec (1925) earned him much popularity. Interesting collections of essays include Hommes, médecins, machines (1959) and Lettre ouverte contre une vaste conspiration (1966)—with its strictures on modern cultural attitudes and standards. But his outstanding work remains his roman-fleuve: Les Hommes de bonne volonté (1932-47).

[John Cruickshank]

Famous French author who first studied the phenomenon of eyeless sight. Born Louis Farigoule on August 26, 1885, at Saint-Julien, Chapteuil in Velay, in the Haute-Loire district of France, he grew up in Paris. He was a talented scholar and received his bachelor's degree by 1903. In that year Romains also had a sudden mystical experience of universalism, which he embodied in a philosophy he called "Unanism" and expressed in his book of poems La Vie Unanime (1908).

In 1909, he received his degree in philosophy and science, and become a professor of philosophy at the Lycée of Brest. He published more poems, a play, and a novel before World War I shattered his universalist hopes of human society. After the war he devoted much time to travel and writing.

His book on eyeless sight is his only scientific work. First published in France in the early 1920s, it deals with his research in developing vision in blind people through a little-known faculty of perception usually associated with psychics. The book was ridiculed by his colleagues and he was refused access to subjects for experiments. He abandoned his scientific research, and under the name "Jules Romains" became a universally acclaimed poet, dramatist, and novelist. He is best known for his vast series of novels surveying the world scene from the beginning of the twentieth century on, published in English as Men of Good Will in 27 volumes (1932-48). Romains died August 14, 1972.

The subject of eyeless sight was revived in the 1960s with the Soviet experiments in "fingertip vision" with Rosa Kuleshova, and Romains lived to see his own research taken up again by Dr. Yvonne Duplessis in France.

Sources:

Romains, Jules. La vision extra-rétinienne. English edition as: Eyeless Sight. London, 1924. Reprint, New York: Citadel Press, 1978.

Jules Romains photo taken by Carl Van Vechten, 1936

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Jules Romains, born Louis Henri Jean Farigoule (August 26, 1885 - August 14, 1972), was a French poet and writer and the founder of the Unanimism literary movement. His works include the play Dr. Knock, the cinematographic tale Donogoo-Tonka ou les miracles de la science, and a cycle of works called Les Hommes de bonne volonté (Men of Good Will).

Jules Romain was born in Saint-Julien-Chapteuil in the Haute-Loire but went to Paris to attend first the lycée Condorcet and then the prestigious École normale supérieure. He was close to the Abbaye de Créteil, a utopian group founded in 1906 by Charles Vildrac and René Arcos, which brought together, among others, the writer Georges Duhamel, the painter Albert Gleizes and the musician Albert Doyen. He received his agrégation in philosophy in 1909.

In 1927, he signed a petition (that appeared in the magazine Europe on April 15) against the law on the general organization of the nation in time of war, abbrogating all intellectual independence and all freedom of expression. His name on the petition appeared with those of Lucien Descaves, Louis Guilloux, Henry Poulaille, Séverine... and those of the young Raymond Aron and Jean-Paul Sartre from the École normale supérieure.

During World War II he went into exile first to the United States where he spoke on the radio through the Voice of America and then, beginning in 1941, to Mexico where he participated with other French refugees in founding the Institut Français d'Amérique Latine (IFAL).

A writer on many varied topics, Jules Romain was elected to the Académie Française in 1946, occupying chair 12 (among the 40 chairs in that august academy). In 1964, Jules Romains was named citizen of honor of Saint-Avertin. Following his death in Paris in 1972, his place, chair 12, in the Académie Française was taken by Jean d'Ormesson.

Jules Romains is remembered today, among other things, for his concept of Unanimism and his cycle of novels in Les Hommes de bonne volonté (The Men of Good Will), a remarkable literary fresco depicting the odyssey over a quarter century of two friends, the writer Jallez and politician Jerphanion, who provide an example in literature of Unanimism.

Contents 1 Unanimism 2 Romains in Popular Culture 3 Source 4 External links

Unanimism

Romains originally considered unanimism to mean an opposition to individualism or to the exaltation of individual particularities; universal sympathy with life, existence and humanity. In later years, Romains defined it as connected with the end of literature within "representation of the world without judgement", where his social ideals comprise the highest conception of solidarity as a defense of individual rights.

Romains in Popular Culture

The Red Envelope catalog company, in their 2007 Holiday catalog, surprisingly featured Les Createurs on the cover in a photograph, showing a female model playfully frustrated with her husband, a male model posing as a detached intellectual, half-heartedly helping her to decorate the Christmas tree, while his attention is focused on reading Les Createurs.

Source

This entry is based in part upon a translation of the entry to Jules Romains in the French Wikipedia (translated on October 22, 2007).

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jules Romains

• Poems by Jules Romains

Preceded by Abel Bonnard

Seat 12 Académie française 1946-1972

Succeeded by Jean d'Ormesson

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