Benjamin Crémieux
Subtitle: a French critic of Italian literature.
Publisher: Princeton University
Published: 1959
Place of publication: Princeton (N.J.)
Language: eng
Subjects: Crémieux, Benjamin.
Description: The French critic, Benjamin Cremieux, born in Narbonne in 1888, is particularly well-known for his criticism of Italian literature, his interpretation of the Italian mind and sensibilities, and his introduction of this literature in France.  In 1908, at the age of twenty, he went to Florence with Julien Luchaire and Pierre Ronzy to found the Institut Francais in that city.  His life-long identification with Italy and Italian culture dates from that initial experience.  Cremieux's career came abruptly to an end during World War II when, as a member of the French Underground, he was arrested by the Nazis occupying France, and deported to a concentration camp.  He died in Buchenwald in April, 1944.

Chapter I of this thesis is in the nature of a brief biography of Benjamin Cremieux.  Up to this time, no biography of this critic has ever been published.  The present attempt includes some of Cremieux's heretofore unpublished correspondence and an unpublished poem written by Cremieux in 1908, addressed to Pierre Ronzy and entitled "ce que nous serons."

It is the main purpose of this paper to examine Cremieux's criticism of Italian literature from the unification of modern Italy in 1870 to the Fascist period just preceding World War II.  Chapter II comports an analysis of Cremieux's critical method and point of view, and includes a survey of his criticism of Italian literature from the date of his first published article in 1909, until 1938 when Fascist brought to a close his consideration of that literature.

Cremieux's Panorama de la litterature italienne, published in 1928, presented a synthesis of his criticism up to that time.  It was Cremieux's intention in this work to give a "coherent view" of the complexity of modern Italian literature.  This "coherent view," however is not expressed solely in Panorama; rather, it emerges from the unity of all of Cremieux's studies on this subject.  Chapters III and IV are a consideration of the significant literary periods and personalities of modern Italian literature as defined by Cremieux.  Specifically treated are the Carducci reaction after 1870, the verist school, Benedetto Croce and "l'ere de la critique," the literature of the first World War and the post-war period including the Fascist era, and finally the two authors Cremieux considered the most outstanding of this period, Gabriele  D'Annunzio and Luigi Pirandello.

Chapter V treats the important dialect literature of Italy and its effect upon Italian as a literary language; and Chapter VI studies Cremieux's analysis of the eight most significant authors, along with D'Annunzio and Pirandello, of modern Italian literature up to World War II:  Pascoli, Fogazzaro, and Panzini; Soffici and Papini, Cecchi and Ungaretti, and Italo Svevo.

Cremieux's originality in his cricicism, in addition to his "coherent view" of Italian literature, lies in his outstanding ability for self-identification with both the author and literary movement under consideration, and with the social, intellectual, and political climate of the period he treats.  His fundamental concern is with the regretted disappearance of an "esprit europeen" in literature, and his unique significance is in his attempt to revive this cosmopolitan and humanistic spirit.
Notes: Ph.D., Princeton University, Dept of Romance Languages, 1959.
Table of contents: value: Chapter I:  A Short Biography of Benjamin Cremieux                                                                                                                                                                                    1; value: Chapter II:  Cremieux's Critical Method. A Survey of his Criticism of Italian Literature                                                                                                                         52; value: Chapter III:  Cremieux's "Coherent View" of Italian Literature: From the Univication of Italy to the First World War. The Carducci Reaction.; value: The Verist Movement.  Croce and "l'Ere de la Critique."                                                                                                                                                              107; value: Chapter IV:  Cremieux's "Coherent View" of Italian Literature:  From World War I to Fascism.  The War Literature.  D'Annunzio and Pirandello.; value: The Neo-Classic Reaction and the Fascist Era.                                                                                                                                                                               137; value: Chapter V:  The Two Literatures of Italy and the Problem of Language                                                                                                                                                         171; value: Chapter VI:  The Significant Authors                                                                                                                                                                                                                        187; value: Conclusion                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          220; value: Appendix                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             227; value: Bibliography                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      235