Thibaudet, Albert

(1847-1936)

   literary critic

   Born in Tournas, Albert Thibaudet was greatly influenced as a philosopher by henri bergson and taught French literature at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, from 1925 until his death. His articles for La nouvelle Revue française (1912-14, 1919-34) put together later in Réflexions sur le roman (1938), sur la littérature (1938 and 1941), and sur la critique (1939), as well as his numerous essays, had a considerable influence on critical thought in the period between the two world wars. The effect he brought to the most diverse intellectual and cultural currents was apparent with his first essays, La Poésie de Stéphane Mallarmé (1912; revised 1926), in which he proved himself to be an incisive theorist of symbolism, and Les Heures de l'Acropolis (1913). Able to apply a Bergson-like interpretation to writers as different as Flaubert (1922; revised 1935), Stendhal (1931), or Paul Valéry (1924), Thibaudet collected his studies in the three volumes that constitute Trente Ans de vie française, Les Idées de Charles Maurras (1920), La Vie de Maurice Barrès (1921), and Le Bergsonisme (1923) before analyzing them more personally in Les Idées politiques de la France (1931). A significant demonstration of the extent and eclecticism of his knowledge, his Histoire de la littérture française de 1789 à nosjours (1936) was put together, posthumously, from his notes.