JPS @ CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS

Title:Jean-Paul Sartre

Known As: Sartre, Jean-Paul Charles-Aymard; Guillemin, Jacques; Sartre, Jean Paul; Sartre, Jean-Paul-Charles-Aymard; Sartre, Jean-Paul

French Philosopher ( 1905 - 1980 )

Source:Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2006. From Literature Resource Center.

Document Type:Biography

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2011 Gale, Cengage Learning

Updated:06/22/2006

Table of Contents:AwardsCareerFurther Readings About the AuthorMedia AdaptationsObituaryPersonal InformationSidelightsWritings by the Author

PERSONAL INFORMATION:

Born June 21, 1905, in Paris, France; died April 15, 1980, of a lung ailment, in Paris, France; son of Jean-Baptiste (a naval officer) and Anne-Marie (Schweitzer) Sartre; children: Arlette el Kaim-Sartre (adopted). Education: Attended Lycee Louis-le-Grand; Ecole Normale Superieure, agrege de philosophie, 1930; further study in Egypt, Italy, Greece, and in Germany under Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. Politics: Communistic, but not party member. Religion: Atheist. Military/Wartime Service: Meteorological Corps, 1929-31; French Army, 1939- 40; prisoner of war in Germany for nine months, 1940-41. Served in Resistance Movement, 1941-44, wrote for its underground newspapers, Combat and Les Lettres Francaises. One of the founders of the French Rally of Revolutionary Democrats. Memberships: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Modern Language Association of America (honorary fellow).

CAREER:

Philosopher and author of novels, plays, screenplays, biographies, and literary and political criticism. Professeur of philosophy at Lycee le Havre, 1931-32 and 1934-36, Institut Francais, Berlin, 1933-34, Lycee de Laon, 1936-37, Lycee Pasteur, 1937-39, and Lycee Condorcet, 1941-44. Founded Les Temps modernes, 1944, editor, beginning 1945. Lecturer at various institutions in United States, including Harvard, Columbia, Yale, and Princeton universities, and in Europe, the U.S.S.R., and China.

AWARDS:

Roman populiste prize, 1940, for Le Mur; French Legion d'honneur, 1945 (refused); New York Drama Critics Award for best foreign play of the season, 1947, for No Exit; French Grand Novel Prize, 1950, for La Nausee; Omegna Prize (Italy), 1960, for total body of work; Nobel Prize for Literature, 1964 (refused); received honorary doctorate from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 1976.

WORKS:

WRITINGS:

PHILOSOPHY

  • L'imagination, Librairie Felix Alcan, 1936, French and European Publications, 1970, translation by Forrest Williams published as Imagination: A Psychological Critique, University of Michigan Press, 1962.
  • Esquisse d'une theorie des emotions, Hermann, 1939 , translation by Bernard Frechtman published as The Emotions: Outline of a Theory, Philosophical Library, 1948, translation by Philip Mairet published as Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions, Methuen (London), 1962.
  • L'imaginaire: Psychologie phenomenologique de l'imagination, Gallimard, 1940, translation published as The Psychology of Imagination, Philosophical Library, 1948.
  • L'etre et le neant: Essai d'ontologie phenomenologique, Gallimard, 1943, translation by Hazel E. Barnes published as Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (also see below), Philosophical Library, 1956, abridged edition, Citadel, 1964.
  • L'existentialisme est un humanisme, Nagel, 1946, translation by Frechtman published as Existentialism (also see below), Philosophical Library, 1947, translation by Mairet published as Existentialism and Humanism, Methuen, 1948.
  • Existentialism and Human Emotions (selections fromExistentialism and Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology), Philosophical Library, 1957.
  • Transcendence of the Ego: An Existentialist Theory of Consciousness, translation by Williams and Robert Kirkpatrick, Noonday, 1957 , original French edition published as La Transcendance de l'ego: Esquisse d'une description phenomenologique, J. Vrin, 1965.
  • Critique de la raison dialectique: Precede de Question de methode, Gallimard, 1960, translation by Alan Sheridan-Smith published as Critique of Dialectical Reason: Theory of Practical Ensembles, Humanities, 1976.
  • (With others) Marxisme et Existentialisme, Plon, 1962 , translation by John Matthews published as Between Existentialism and Marxism, NLB, 1974.
  • Choix de textes, edited by J. Sebille, Nathan, 1962, 2nd edition, 1966.
  • Essays in Aesthetics, selected and translated by Wade Baskin, Philosophical Library, 1963.
  • Search for a Method, translation by Barnes, Knopf, 1963, published as The Problem of Method, Methuen, 1964, original French edition published as Question de methode, Gallimard, 1967.
  • The Philosophy of Existentialism, edited by Baskin, Philosophical Library, 1965.
  • The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre (translated excerpts), edited by Robert Denoon Cummings, Random House, 1965.
  • Of Human Freedom, edited by Baskin, Philosophical Library, 1967.
  • Essays in Existentialism, selected and edited with a foreword by Baskin, Citadel, 1967.
  • The Wisdom of Jean-Paul Sartre (selections from Barnes's translation of Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology), Philosophical Library, 1968.
  • Textes choisis, edited by Marc Beigbeder and Gerard Deledalle, Bordes, 1968.
  • Verite et existence, edited by Arlette el Kaim-Sartre, Gallimard, 1990.

FICTION

  • La Nausee, Gallimard, 1938, translation by Lloyd Alexander published as Nausea, New Directions, 1949, published as The Diary of Antoine Requentin, J. Lehmann, 1949, new edition with illustrations by Walter Spitzer, Editions Lidis, 1964, new translation by Robert Baldick, Penguin, 1965.
  • Le Mur, Gallimard, 1939, translation published as The Wall, and Other Stories, preface by Jean-Louis Curtis, New Directions, 1948.
  • Les Chemins de la liberte, Volume 1: L'age de raison, Gallimard, 1945, new edition with illustrations by Spitzer, Editions Lidis, 1965, Volume 2: Le Sursis, Gallimard, 1945, Volume 3: La Mort dans l'ame, Gallimard, 1949, French and European Publications, 1972; translation published as The Roads of Freedom, Volume 1: The Age of Reason, translation by Eric Sutton, Knopf, 1947, new edition with introduction by Henri Peyre, Bantam, 1968, Volume 2: The Reprieve, translation by Sutton, Knopf, 1947, Volume 3: Iron in the Soul, translation by Gerard Hopkins, Hamish Hamilton, 1950, translation by Hopkins published as Troubled Sleep, Knopf, 1951.
  • Intimacy, and Other Stories, translation by Alexander, Berkley Publishing, 1956.

PLAYS

  • Les Mouches (also see below; produced in Paris at Theatre Sarah-Bernhardt, 1942; translation by Stuart Gilbert produced as The Flies in New York City at President Theatre, April 17, 1947), Gallimard, 1943, new edition edited by F. C. St. Aubyn and Robert G. Marshall, Harper, 1963.
  • Huis-clos (also see below; produced in Paris at Theatre du Vieux-Colombier, 1944; translation by Marjorie Gabain and Joan Swinstead produced as The Vicious Circle in London at Arts Theatre Club, 1946 ; translation by Paul Bowles produced as No Exit on Broadway at Biltmore Theatre, 1946), Gallimard, 1945 , new edition edited by Jacques Hardre and George B. Daniel, Appleton, 1962.
  • The Flies (also see below) [and] In Camera, translation by Gilbert, Hamish Hamilton, 1946 , published with No Exit, Knopf, 1947, original French edition published as Huis-clos [and] Les Mouches, Gallimard, 1964.
  • Morts sans sepulture (also see below; produced with La Putain respectueuse in Sweden at Theatre Goeteborg, 1946; produced in Paris at Theatre Antoine, 1946; translation produced as Men without Shadows on the West End at Lyric Theatre, 1947; translation produced as The Victors in New York City at New Stages Theatre, 1948), Marguerat, 1946.
  • La Putain respectueuse (also see below; produced with Morts sans sepulture at Theatre Goeteberg, 1946; produced at Theatre Antoine, 1946), Nagel, 1946, translation published as The Respectful Prostitute (also see below; produced at New Stages Theatre, 1948; produced on Broadway at Cort Theatre, 1948), Twice a Year Press, 1948.
  • Theatre I (contains Les Mouches,Huis-clos,Morts sans sepulture, and La Putain respectueuse), Gallimard, 1947.
  • Les jeux sont faits (screenplay; produced by Gibe-Pathe Films, 1947), Nagel, 1947, new edition edited by Mary Elizabeth Storer, Appleton, 1952, translation by Louise Varese published as The Chips Are Down, Lear, 1948.
  • Les Mains sales (also see below; produced at Theatre Antoine, 1948; translation by Kitty Black produced as Crime Passionnel on the West End at Lyric Theatre, 1948, and adapted by Daniel Taradash and produced as The Red Gloves in New York City at Mansfield Theatre, 1948), Gallimard, 1948, published as Les Mains sales: Piece en sept tableaux, edited by Geoffrey Brereton, Methuen, 1963, new edition with analysis and notes by Gaston Meyer, Edition Bordas, 1971.
  • L'engrenage (screenplay), Nagel, 1948, translation by Mervyn Savill published as In the Mesh, A. Dakers, 1954.
  • Three Plays (contains The Victors,Dirty Hands [translation of Les Mains sales], and The Respectable Prostitute), translation by Lionel Abel, Knopf, 1949.
  • Three Plays: Crime Passionnel, Men without Shadows, [and] The Respectable Prostitute, translation by Black, Hamish Hamilton, 1949.
  • Le Diable et le Bon Dieu (produced at Theatre Antoine, 1951), Gallimard, 1951 , translation by Black published as Lucifer and the Lord (also see below), Hamish Hamilton, 1953, published as The Devil and the Good Lord, and Two Other Plays, Knopf, 1960.
  • (Adapter) Alexandre Dumas, Kean (also see below; produced in Paris at Theatre Sarah-Bernhardt, 1953), Gallimard, 1954, translation by Black published as Kean, or Disorder and Genius, Hamish Hamilton, 1954, Vintage, 1960.
  • No Exit, and Three Other Plays (contains No Exit,The Flies,Dirty Hands, and The Respectful Prostitute), Random House, 1955.
  • Nekrassov (also see below; produced at Theatre Antoine, 1955), Gallimard, 1956 , translation by Sylvia and George Leeson published as Nekrassov (produced in London at Royal Court Theatre, 1957), Hamish Hamilton, 1956, French and European Publications, 1973.
  • Les Sequestres d'Altona (also see below; produced in Paris at Theatre de la Renaissance, 1959), Gallimard, 1960, new edition edited and with an introduction by Philip Thody, University of London Press, 1965 , translation by S. Leeson and G. Leeson published as Loser Wins, Hamish Hamilton, 1960, published as The Condemned of Altona (also see below; produced on Broadway at Vivian Beaumont Theatre, 1966), Knopf, 1961.
  • Crime Passionnel: A Play, translation by Black, Methuen, 1961.
  • Theatre (contains Les Mouches,Huis-clos,Morts sans sepulture,La Putain respectueuse,Les Mains sales,Le Diable et le Bon Dieu,Kean,Nekrassov, and Les Sequestres d'Altona), Gallimard, 1962.
  • Bariona, Anjou-Copies, 1962, 2nd edition, E. Marescot, 1967.
  • The Condemned of Altona,Men without Shadows, [and] The Flies, Penguin, 1962.
  • Orphee Noir (first published in Anthologie de la nouvelle poesie negre et malgache de langue francaise, Presses Universitaires de France, 1948), translation by S. W. Allen published as Black Orpheus, University Place Book Shop, c. 1963.
  • La Putain respectueuse, piece en un acte et deux tableaux: Suivi de Morts sans sepulture, piece en deux actes et quatre tableax, Gallimard, 1963.
  • The Respectable Prostitute [and] Lucifer and the Lord, translation by Black, Penguin, 1965.
  • (Adapter) Euripides, Les troyennes (produced in Paris at Theatre National Populaire, 1965), Gallimard, 1966, translation by Ronald Duncan published as The Trojan Women (also see below), Knopf, 1967.
  • Three Plays (contains Kean, or Disorder and Genius,Nekrassov, and The Trojan Women), Penguin, 1969.
  • Five Plays (contains No Exit,The Flies,Dirty Hands,The Respectful Prostitute, and The Condemned of Altona), Franklin Library, 1978.

Also author of screenplay Typhus, 1944, of an unpublished play All the Treasures of the Earth, and of screenplay Les Sorcieres de Salem adapted from Arthur Miller's The Crucible.

LITERARY CRITICISM AND POLITICAL WRITINGS

  • Reflexions sur la question juive, P. Morihien, 1946, translation by George J. Becker published as Anti-Semite and Jew, Schocken, 1948, translation by Erik de Mauney published as Portrait of the Anti-Semite, Secker & Warburg (England), 1948.
  • Baudelaire, Gallimard, 1947, translation by Martin Turnell published as Baudelaire, Horizon (London), 1949, New Directions, 1950.
  • Situations I, Gallimard, 1947, published as Critiques litteraires, 1975.
  • Situations II, Gallimard, 1948.
  • Qu'est-ce que le litterature? (first published in Situations II), Gallimard, 1949, translation by Frechtman published as What Is Literature?, Philosophical Library, 1949, published as Literature and Existentialism, Citadel, 1962.
  • Situations III, Gallimard, 1949.
  • (With David Rousset and Gerard Rosenthal) Entretiens sur la politique, Gallimard, 1949.
  • Saint Genet, comedien et martyr, Gallimard, 1952, translation by Frechtman published as Saint Genet: Actor and Martyr, Braziller, 1963.
  • Literary and Philosophical Essays (excerpts from Situations I and III), translation by Annette Michelson, Criterion, 1955.
  • Literary Essays (excerpts from Situations I and III), translation by Michelson, Philosophical Library, 1957.
  • Sartre on Cuba, Ballantine, 1961.
  • Situations IV: Portraits, Gallimard, 1964 , translation by Benita Eisler published as Situations, Braziller, 1965.
  • Situations V: Colonialisme et neo-colonialisme, Gallimard, 1964.
  • Situations VI: Problemes du Marxisme, Part I, Gallimard, 1966.
  • (Contributor) Aime Cesaire, Das politische Denken Lumumbas, Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, 1966.
  • Situations VII: Problemes du Marxisme, Part II, Gallimard, 1967.
  • On Genocide, with commentary on the International War Crimes Tribunal by Sartre's adopted daughter, Arlette el Kaim-Sartre, Beacon, 1968.
  • The Ghost of Stalin, translation by Martha H. Fletcher and John R. Kleinschmidt, Braziller, 1968, translation by Irene Clephane published as The Spectre of Stalin, Hamish Hamilton, 1969.
  • Les Communistes et la paix (first published in Situations VI), Gallimard, 1964, translation by Fletcher and Kleinschmidt (bound with "A Reply to Claude Lefort" translated by Philip R. Berk) published as The Communists and Peace, Braziller, 1968.
  • El Intelectual frente a la revolution, Ediciones Hombre Nuevo, 1969.
  • Les Communistes ont peur de la revolution, J. Didier, 1969.
  • (With Vladimir Dedijer) War Crimes in Vietnam, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 1971.
  • L'idiot de la famille, Gallimard, 1971, translation by Car ol Cosman published as The Family Idiot: Gustave Flaubert, 1821-1857, three volumes, University of Chicago Press, 1981-89.
  • Situations VIII: Autour de 1968, French and European Publications, 1972.
  • Situations IX: Melanges, French and European Publications, 1972.
  • Situations X: Politique et Autobiographie, French and European Publications, 1976, translation by Paul Auster and Lydia Davis published as Life/Situations: Essays Written and Spoken, Pantheon, 1977.

OTHER

  • (Contributor) L'Affaire Henri Martin (title means "The Henry Martin Affair"), Gallimard, 1953.
  • Sartre par lui-meme, edited by Francis Jeanson, Editions du Seuil, 1959, translation by Richard Seaver published as Sartre by Himself, Outback Press, 1978.
  • (Author of text) Andre Masson, Vingt-Deux Dessins sur le Theme du Desir, F. Mourtot, 1961.
  • Les Mots (autobiography), Gallimard, 1963, translation by Frechtman published as The Words, Braziller, 1964, translation by Clephane published as Words, Hamish Hamilton, 1964.
  • Sartre por Sartre, edited by Juan Jose Sebreli, Jorge Alvarez, 1968.
  • (Editor with Bertrand Russell) Das Vietnam Tribunal, Rowohlt Verlag, 1970.
  • Gott ohne Gott (contains Bariona and a dialogue with Sartre), edited by Gotthold Hasenhuttl, Graz Verlag (Austria), 1972.
  • Un theatre de situations, compiled and edited by Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka, Gallimard, 1973, translation by Frank Jellinck published as Sartre on Theater, Pantheon, 1976.
  • Oeuvres romanesques, edited by Contat and Rybalka, Gallimard, 1981.
  • Cahiers pour une morale, Gallimard, 1983.
  • Carnets de la drole de guerre, Gallimard, 1983, new edition, 1995.
  • (With Simone de Beauvoir) Lettres au Castor et a quelques autres, Volume 1: "1926-1939," translated by Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee as Witness to My Life: The Letters of Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone de Beauvoir, 1926-1939, Scribner, 1992, Volume 2: "1940-1963," Gallimard, 1984, translated by Fahnestock and MacAfee as Quiet Moments in a War: The Letters of Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone de Beauvoir, 1940-1963, Macmillan, 1993.
  • Le scenario Freud, Gallimard, 1984, translation by Quintin Hoare published as The Freud Scenario, University of Chicago Press, 1985.
  • The War Diaries of Jean-Paul Sartre, Random House, 1985.
  • Notes from a Phony War, Editions Gallimard, 1995.
  • (With Benny Levy) Hope Now: The 1980 Interviews, translated by Adrian van den Hoven, University of Chicago Press, 1996.
  • Existential Psychoanalysis, Regnery Pub. (Washington, DC), 1997.
  • Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings, Routledge (New York, NY), 2000.

Contributor to numerous books, anthologies, and periodicals. Editor ofLa Cause du peuple, beginning 1970, Tout!, beginning 1970, and Revolution!, beginning 1971.

MEDIA ADAPTATIONS:

The Chips Are Down, a film based on Sartre's screenplay Le jeux sont faits, was produced by Lopert in 1949; Les Mains sales, a film based on Sartre's play of the same title, was produced by Rivers Films in 1951 and later released in the United States as Dirty Hands;La Putain respectueuse, a film based on Sartre's play of the same title, was produced by Agiman Films and Artes Films in 1952; The Respectable Prostitute, a film based on Sartre's play La Putain respectueuse, was produced by Gala in 1955; Les orgueilleux, a film based on Sartre's original screenplay Typhus, was produced by Jean Productions in 1953 and was released in the United States as The Proud and the Beautiful by Kingsley in 1956; Huis- clos, a film based on Sartre's play of the same title, was produced by Jacqueline Audry in 1954; Kean, Genio e Sregolatezza, a film based on an Alexandre Dumas play adapted by Sartre, was produced by Lux Films in 1957; Les sequestres d'Altona, a film based on Sartre's play of the same title, was produced by Titanus Films in 1963 and released in the United States as The Condemned of Altona by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. in 1963; a television production based on Huis- clos was broadcast on O.R.T.F. (French Radio-Television) in October, 1965; Le Mur, a film based on Sartre's short story of the same title, was produced by Niepce Films in 1967; The Roads to Freedom, a thirteen-week television serial based on Sartre's novels, The Age of Reason, The Reprieve, and Troubled Sleep was produced by the British Broadcasting Corp. in 1970.

SIDELIGHTS

Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the major intellectual figures of the twentieth century, doubtless the greatest of his immediate generation in France. In the words of Sartrean scholars Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka in The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, he was "uncontestably the most outstanding philosopher and writer of our time." The eminent scholar Henri Peyre, in his preface to The Condemned of Altona, called Sartre "the most powerful intellect at work ... in the literature of Western Europe," the "Picasso of literature." Since his death in 1980, Sartre's reputation has not waned, and with perspective it has become clear that he represented his age much as, in different ways, Voltaire (1694-1778), Victor Hugo (1802-1885), and Andre Gide (1869-1951) represented theirs. "To understand Jean-Paul Sartre," wrote the novelist Iris Murdoch in Sartre: Romantic Rationalist, "is to understand something important about the present time."

Sartre was the chief proponent of French existentialism, a philosophic school--influenced by Soeren Kierkegaard and German philosophy--that developed around the close of the World War II. Existentialism stressed the primacy of the thinking person and of concrete individual experience as the source of knowledge; this philosophy also emphasized the anguish and solitude inherent in the making of choices.

Sartre's worldwide fame was based substantially on his existentialism, but it would be a mistake to consider him significant only for a philosophy that represented his thinking at a relatively early stage of his career. It would be a still greater mistake to reduce his existentialism to very simplistic elements, such as crude nihilism, as often has been done.

Sartre's literary and philosophic careers were inextricably bound together and are best understood in relation to one another and to their biographic context. An only child, Sartre decided at an early age to be a writer. According to The Words, the autobiography of his youth, this decision was made in conscious opposition to the wishes of his grandfather, Charles Schweitzer (who, after the death of Sartre's father, raised the boy with the help of Sartre's grandmother). Schweitzer, a domineering old Protestant who was nevertheless very fond of his grandson and extremely indulgent with him, appeared to young Sartre as insincere, a consummate charlatan. Charles Schweitzer preached the serious values of the bourgeoisie and tried to denigrate a career in letters as precarious, unsuitable for stable middle-class people. As a reaction, Sartre proposed to make writing serious, to adopt it as the center of his life and values. He also chose it as a kind of self-justification in a world where a child was not taken seriously. "By writing I was existing. I was escaping from the grown-ups," he wrote in The Words.