Maurice Barrès (1862-1923)
French novelist and nationalist politician, born on the 17th of August 1862 in
Charmes. As an advocate of the supremacy of the individual self, he wrote the
trilogy of novels Le Culte du moi (1888–91). Finding that cultivation of the ego
called for action as well as analysis, Barrès turned to a nationalism that grew
into vengeful hatred of Germany, fanned by strong racist feeling and by love for
his native Lorraine. The trilogy Le Roman de l'énergie nationale (1897–1902)
embodied his nationalistic views. The Sacred Hill (1913) is a symbolic story
showing Catholicism as a bar to nationalism. After World War I, Barrès remained
a patriotic extremist. His reputation as a literary artist rests on his graceful,
lyrical prose and his powers of analysis and description. He died on the 4th of
December 1909.
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