Thursday Thirteen 207: Sartre

This week's post was influenced by Tuesday's issue of The Writer's Almanac.


Tuesday, June 21, marked the birth of French philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre, born in Paris in 1905.

Sartre earned a doctorate in philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, which was the alma mater for many prominent French thinkers.

It was at the École Normale in 1929 that he met Simone de Beauvoir, who studied at the Sorbonne and became a noted philosopher, writer, and feminist. They were inseparable lifelong companions, though not monogamous.

Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged cultural and social assumptions and expectations of what they considered their bourgeois upbringings, both in how they lived and thought.

Sartre was drafted into the French army in 1939 as a meteorologist, and was captured by Germans in 1940. It was during his nine months as a prisoner of war that he first read Heidegger, which had a huge influence on his own writings.

After WWII, Sartre established a quarterly literary and political review, Les Temps Modernes (Modern Times), and began writing full-time, writing numerous plays, novels, screenplays, and essays.

Sartre was a leading figure in French philosophy and existentialism, influenced by such notables as Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Husserl and Heidegger. His work continues to influence studies in literature, sociology and many other fields today.

Existentialism generally focuses on the condition of human existence, and a person’s emotions, thoughts, responsibilities and actions, or the purpose of life. It makes for very heavy, thought-provoking reading, and challenges your beliefs.
The dominant theme in much of Sartre’s early work, as found in his principal philosophical work L'Être et le Néant (Being and Nothingness) was the conflict between oppressive and spiritually destructive conformity and living an authentic life.

I read a few of his works in college, both in French and in English (and in subjects other than those two), including Le Mur (The Wall), Les Mouches (The Flies), and one of my favorite plays, Huis Clos (No Exit).

Huis Clos is the source of one of my favorite quotes, l'enfer, ç'est les autres ("Hell is other people"). Sartre also said, "If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company."

In 1964, Sartre refused the Nobel Prize in literature.

50,000 people thronged the streets of Paris at his death in 1980 to pay their respects.





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Shelley Munro * CountryDew * Darla M Sands
Brenda ND * Colleen * A Kwee Life * Paige Tyler
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