Anatole France
French critic Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole François Thibault wrote sophisticated, often satirical short stories and novels, including
Penguin Island
(1908), and won the Nobel Prize of 1921 for literature.
Anatole France began his career as a poet and a journalist. From 1867, he as a journalist composed articles and notices.
In 1869,
Le Parnasse Contemporain
published
La Part de Madeleine
of his poems. In 1875, he sat on the committee in charge of the third such compilation. He moved Paul Verlaine and Stéphane Mallarmé aside.
Skeptical old scholar Sylvester Bonnard, protagonist of famous
Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard
(1881), embodied own personality of the author. The academy praised its elegant prose.
Anatole France in
La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque
(1893) ridiculed belief in the occult and in
Les Opinions de Jerome Coignard
(1893) captured the atmosphere of the fin de siècle.
People elected him to the Académie française in 1896.
People falsely convicted Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer, of espionage. Anatole France took an important part in the affair, signed manifesto of Émile Zola to support Dreyfus, and authored
Monsieur Bergeret
in 1901.
After the nearsighted Abbot Mael baptized the animals in error, France in later work depicts the transformation into human nature in 1908.
People considered most profound
La Revolte des Anges
(1914). It tells of Arcade, the guardian angel of Maurice d'Esparvieu. Arcade falls in love, joins the revolutionary movement of angels, and towards the end recognizes the meaningless overthrow of God unless "in ourselves and in ourselves alone we attack and destroy Ialdabaoth."
People awarded him "in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament" in 1921.
In 1922, the Catholic Church put entire works of France on the
Index Librorum Prohibitorum
(Index of Prohibited Books).
He died, and people buried his body in the Neuilly-sur-Seine community cemetery near Paris.
“It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion.”
“If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.”
“Our passions are ourselves.”
“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.”
“Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me.”
“To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything.”
“The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of the mind for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.”
“A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.”
“It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.”
“People who have no weaknesses are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them.”
“Of all sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.”
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.”