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Pierre Leroux and his Philosophy in Relation to Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

David Owen Evans*
Affiliation:
University of Delaware

Extract

As a philosopher and social thinker, Pierre Leroux has been the object of considerable attention in recent years, and his works on political, religious and sociological subjects have been studied by scholars of distinction. Since he was also a writer and critic not without a certain fame in his own day, it seems a little curious that his literary activities and influence have yet to receive full treatment.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1929

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References

Note 1 in page 274 Born in Paris in 1797, the son of a Breton artisan, Pierre Leroux worked as a mason and as a compositor before beginning his editorial career and attaining eminence as a philosopher, critic, historian and economist. Elected deputy for Paris in 1848, he went into exile in Jersey and Guernsey after the December coup d'état, returning to France in 1859; while his brother Jules four years later emigrated to America, where, according to Benoît Malon (Histoire du Socialisme, 1882), he became Editor of the Kansas Star. Pierre Leroux died during the Commune, in 1871.

Note 2 in page 274 Paul Stapfer, “Questions esthétiques et religieuses,” Alcan, 1906, pp. 91-143: “Un philosophe religieux du 19e siècle, Pierre Leroux;” Félix Thomas, “Pierre Leroux; sa vie, son oeuvre, sa doctrine. Contribution à l'histoire des idées au 19e siècle,” Alcan, Bibliothèque de Philosophie Contemporaine, 1904. See also Célestin Raillard, “Pierre Leroux et ses oeuvres: l'homme, le philosophe, le socialiste,” Chateauroux, 1899; Paul Janet, “La Philosophie de Pierre Leroux,” RDM, April-May 1899; J. E. Fidao, “Pierre Leroux,” RDM, May-June, 1906.

Note 3 in page 274 As M. Félix Thomas observes (“Pierre Leroux,” p. 29).

Note 4 in page 275Werther, de Goethe, traduction nouvelle,” Paris, 1829.—M. Baldensperger, in his Goethe en France, lists this translation without discussing it.

Note 5 in page 275Job, drame en cinq actes, avec prologue et épilogue, par le prophète Isaīe, rétabli dans son intégrité, et traduit littéralement sur le texte hébreu, par Pierre Leroux,” with the motto “Vitam impendere vero,” Grasse and Paris, 1866.

Note 6 in page 275 Quoted by Raillard, p. 13.

Note 7 in page 276 M. Thomas writes of it: “Son premier article à la Revue Encyclopédique caractérise avec une admirable netteté l'état des esprits à cette époque et les causes qui l'ont produit,” and calls it perhaps the most remarkable of his works (p. 40).

Note 8 in page 276 “Condillac,” Encyclopédie Nouvelle, tome 3 (1840).

Note 9 in page 277 Réfutation de l'Eclectisme, p. 106.

Note 10 in page 277 “François Bacon,” Encyclopédie Nouvelle, tome 2 (1837).

Note 11 in page 277 “De la loi de continuité qui unit le 18e siècle au 17e.” (1833).

Note 12 in page 278 Stapfer, “Questions esthétiques et religieuses,” pp. 126-127.

Note 13 in page 278 Ibid., p. 131.

Note 14 in page 279 Ibid., p. 132.

Note 15 in page 280 F. Thomas, Pierre Leroux, p. 45.

Note 16 in page 283 American editor's notes, p. 394.

Note 17 in page 284 H. Girard, La pensée religieuse des romantiques, RHL, March 1925.

Note 18 in page 284 E. Faguet, Un bon buste, Le Gaulois, February 25, 1896.

Note 19 in page 284 Portraits littéraires, vol. 1, p. 314.

Note 20 in page 284 Causeries du lundi, vol. 11, pp. 533 ss. Compare Portraits littéraires, vol. 1, p. 318, where he writes that the Romantic School never succeeded in making the Globe its own paper, “mais elle y avait des alliés et des intelligences; M. Leroux, M. Magnin, et celui qui écrit ces lignes, penchaient plus ou moins du côté novateur en poésie.”

Note 21 in page 284 Causeries du lundi, Table, p. 40.

Note 22 in page 285 V. Berret, “La philosophie de V. Hugo.”

Note 23 in page 285 H. Girard, “La pensée religieuse des romantiques,” RHL, 1925, and “Comment Shelley a été révélé à V. Hugo,” Revue Litt. Comparée, 1922. R. Bonnet, “V. Hugo et la Revue Encyclopédique,” RHL, 1914.

Note 24 in page 286 Histoire de ma vie, Vol. 10, p. 28 ss.—The other is Lamennais.

Note 25 in page 286 F. Thomas, p. 65-66.

Note 26 in page 287 La comtesse de Rudolstadt, II, pp. 321-322.