Jules Romains (born Louis Henri Jean Farigoule; 26 August 1885 – 14 August 1972) was a French poet and writer and the founder of the Unanimism literary movement. His works include the play '' Knock ou le Triomphe de la médecine'', and a cycle of works called ''

Les Hommes de bonne volonté ''Les Hommes de bonne volonté'' () is an Epic (genre), epic roman-fleuve by France, French writer Jules Romains, published in 27 Volume (bibliography), volumes between 1932 and 1946. It has been classified both as a novel cycle and a novel and, at ...

(Men of Good Will)''.

Sinclair Lewis Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American writer and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States (and the first from the Americas) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was ...

called him one of the six best novelists in the world. He was nominated for the Nobel prize in literature sixteen times.

Life

Jules Romains was born in Saint-Julien-Chapteuil in the

Haute-Loire Haute-Loire (; oc, Naut Léger or ''Naut Leir''; English: Upper Loire) is a landlocked department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of south-central France. Named after the Loire River, it is surrounded by the departments of Loire, Ardèche, ...

but went to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

to attend first the

Lycée Condorcet The Lycée Condorcet () is a school founded in 1803 in Paris, France, located at 8, rue du Havre, in the city's 9th arrondissement. It is one of the four oldest high schools in Paris and also one of the most prestigious. Since its inception, var ...

and then the prestigious

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, S ...

. He was close to the Abbaye de Créteil, a utopian group founded in 1906 by Charles Vildrac and René Arcos, which brought together, among others, the writer Georges Duhamel, the painter

Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...

and the musician Albert Doyen. He received his agrégation in philosophy in 1909. In the interwar years, he pleaded the cause of pacifism and a united Europe against incipient fascism and despotism. In 1927, he signed a petition (that appeared in the magazine ''Europe'' on 15 April) against the law on the general organization of the nation in time of war, abrogating all intellectual independence and all freedom of expression. His name on the petition appeared with those of Lucien Descaves, Louis Guilloux, Henry Poulaille, Séverine... and those of the young Raymond Aron and

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and lit ...

from the École normale supérieure. His novel ''The Boys in the Back Room'' (''Les Copains'', literally "the pals") appeared in English in 1937. During World War II he went into exile first to the United States where he spoke on the radio through the

Voice of America Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...

and then, beginning in 1941, to Mexico where he participated with other French refugees in founding the Institut Français d'Amérique Latine (IFAL). A writer on many varied topics, Jules Romain was elected to the Académie française on 4 April 1946, occupying chair 12 (of 40). He served as President of

PEN International PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous Internatio ...

, the worldwide association of writers from 1936 to 1941. In 1964, Jules Romains was named citizen of honor of Saint-Avertin. Following his death in

in 1972, his place in the Académie française was taken by

Jean d'Ormesson Count Jean Bruno Wladimir François de Paule Le Fèvre d'Ormesson (16 June 1925 – 5 December 2017) was a French novelist. He was the author of forty books, the director of '' Le Figaro'' from 1974 to 1979, and the Dean of the Académie français ...

. Jules Romains is remembered today, among other things, for his concept of Unanimism and his cycle of novels in ''

(The Men of Good Will)'', a remarkable literary fresco depicting the odyssey over a quarter century of two friends, the writer Jallez and politician Jerphanion, who provide an example in literature of Unanimism. He has been criticized by writer and politician

Aimé Césaire Aimé Fernand David Césaire (; ; 26 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) was a French poet, author, and politician. He was "one of the founders of the Négritude movement in Francophone literature" and coined the word in French. He founded the Par ...

in his 1950 essay ''

Discourse on Colonialism ''Discourse on Colonialism'' (french: Discours sur le colonialisme) is an essay by Aimé Césaire, a poet and politician from Martinique who helped found the '' négritude'' movement in Francophone literature. Césaire first published the essay i ...

'' for his racist statements: "'' ..I will not even censure our Negroes and Negresses for chewing gum. I will only note...that this movement has the effect of emphasizing the jaws, and that the associations which come to mind evoke the equatorial forest rather than the procession of the

Panathenaea The Panathenaea (or Panathenaia) was a multi-day ancient Greek festival held annually in Athens that would always conclude on 28 Hekatombaion, the first month of the Attic calendar.Shear, Julia L. “Hadrian, the Panathenaia, and the Athenian Cal ...

....The black race has not yet produced, will never produce, an Einstein, a Stravinsky, a Gershwin.''"

Unanimism

Romains originally considered unanimism to mean an opposition to individualism or to the exaltation of individual particularities; universal sympathy with life, existence and humanity. In later years, Romains defined it as connected with the end of literature within "representation of the world without judgment", where his social ideals comprise the highest conception of solidarity as a defense of individual rights. His first book was ''La vie unanime'', published in 1904, and in the preface to ''Men of Goodwill'' he identified the ideas in it as essentially the same as those of that later work. The Red Envelope catalog company, in their 2007 Holiday catalog, surprisingly featured ''Les Createurs'' on the cover in a photograph, showing a female model playfully frustrated with her husband, a male model posing as a detached intellectual, half-heartedly helping her to decorate the Christmas tree, while his attention is focused on reading '' Les Createurs''.

Works

* ''Men of Goodwill'' (''Les Hommes de bonne volonté'', 1932-1946; 27 volumes Paris: Calmann Lévy) * ''The body's rapture'' (''Psyche''), London: John Lane, 1933 * ''Tussles with time'' (''Violation de Frontières'', 1951), London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1952 * ''The Death of a Nobody'' (''Mort de quelqu'un'', 1911)

Filmography

* ', directed by René Hervil (1925, based on the play '' Knock'') * ', directed by Roger Goupillières and Louis Jouvet (1933, based on the play '' Knock'') * '' Donogoo Tonka'', directed by Reinhold Schünzel (1936, based on the play ''Donogoo'') ** '' Donogoo'', directed by Reinhold Schünzel and Henri Chomette (1936, based on the play ''Donogoo'') * '' Dr. Knock'', directed by

Guy Lefranc Guy Lefranc (21 October 1919 - 1 February 1994) was a French director and screenwriter. Filmography References External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lefranc, Guy 1919 births 1994 deaths French male screenwriters 20th-century French screen ...

(1951, based on the play '' Knock'') * ', directed by Yves Robert (1965, based on the novel ') * '' Knock'', directed by Lorraine Lévy (2017, based on the play '' Knock'')

Screenwriter

* '' The Portrait'' (1923), directed by Jacques Feyder (1923) * ', directed by Maurice Tourneur (1941)

References

Bibliography

* Mauthner, Martin, ''Otto Abetz and His Paris Acolytes - French Writers Who Flirted with Fascism, 1930–1945''. Sussex Academic Press, 2016, () * Jules-Romains, Lise, ''Les vie inimitables, Souvenirs'', Paris: Flammarion, 1985.

External links

Poems by Jules Romains

PEN International
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Romains, Jules 1885 births 1972 deaths People from Haute-Loire Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Members of the Académie Française Lycée Condorcet alumni French male novelists French pacifists 20th-century French novelists 20th-century French male writers