Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jacques-Henri Bernardin

French literature
By category
French literary history
Medieval 16th century · 17th century 18th century · 19th century 20th century · Contemporary
French writers
Chronological list Writers by category Novelists · Playwrights Poets · Essayists Short story writers
France portal
Literature portal This box: view • talk • edit

Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (January 19, 1737 Le Havre – January 21, 1814 Éragny, Val-d'Oise) was a French writer and botanist. He is best known for his 1787 novel Paul et Virginie. In 1795 he was elected to the Institut de France, and in 1803 to the Académie Française.

From Antoine-Louis Barye: Sculptor of Romantic Realism by Glenn F. Benge, p.8:

"Bayre's predators devouring their living prey indulge the emotions in a Romantic way of course, but they also embody a romantically moralizing point of view like those held by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Mme de Staël, and Victor Hugo. The Oeuvres complètes of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre appeared in Paris in 1834 and was surely known to Bayre, for the author was the former director of the zoo in the Jardin des Plantes and one of the "masters of genuine poetry" for the archromantic Mme de Staël. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre maintained that a carnivorous animal in devouring its prey alive committed a sin against the laws of its own nature."