Schlumberger, Jean

(1877-1968)

   writer

   Born in Guebwiller, Jean Schlumberger was a friend of André Gide, with whom he founded and sustained La nouvelle Revue française, and also of jacques copeau. Schlumberger, who was raised in a Protestant milieu and was interested in the history of religions, wrote a work that identified him as a foremost a moralist and henceforth an agnostic, concerned with the dramas that took place within the family or in social groups, when individuals are forced to deal with generational conflicts. Le Lion devenu vieux (1924), an evocation of the final weeks of Cardinal retz and the bitter constraints on his life, is a study of the tragedy of aging, which is also the main theme in Saint-Saturnin (1931), a book about the attachment to a house and faithfulness to a tradition, as well as being a study of the self-betrayal that old age might bring. This taste for psychological analysis as well as a rigorous self-examination is found in Schlumberger's other stories, such as Passion (1956); in his critical studies, like Plaisir à Corneille (1936) or Madeleine et André Gide (1956); and in his plays and essays.