Benjamin Constant Livres

This volume contains the definitive version of the second of the five volumes of Benjamin Constant's major study entitled „De la Religion, considérée dans sa source ...“. Its unusually extensive annexes assemble a selection of manuscripts illustrating the working methods and strategies employed by the author. Further, the volume contains a general introduction, a chronology and a detailed critical apparatus comprising explanatory notes, biographical details of the persons referred to, a bibliography, and an index of proper names. As such it gives a graphic idea of the astounding originality displayed by Constant in his approach to research on religion.

Volume VI of the »Complete Works« contains the first two of the Intimate Journals, the full-length Journal (1804-1805) and the abridged version (1804-1807), complete with an exhaustive description of notable features in the manuscripts and a set of notes far broader in scope than those of the first edition (1952). The Journals are followed by a hitherto unedited dossier kept by Constant on the financial differences between himself and his father. This document, titled »Affaire de mon père«, enhances our understanding of the complex relations between the two men. The volume also provides a useful critical apparatus including a chronology, a list of works cited by Constant, a bibliography, indexes of personal and place names, etc.

Pris Adolphe ou la première grande histoire d'amour romantique française. Avec cet ouvrage, Benjamin Constant inaugure un long siècle de romantisme, d'amours douloureuses et mortelles.

Dans Adolphe, un homme s'efforce de briser les chaînes d'une liaison amoureuse dans laquelle il s'est comme malgré li, fourvoyé. " ...un marivaudage tragique où la difficulté n'est point, comme chez Marivaux, de faire une déclaration d'amour, mais une déclaration de haine. " (Stendhal.) Mais ce livre sèchement cruel brille de mille feux contradictoires. Chant de victoire d'un amant délivré d'une femme devenue encombrante, il est en même temps le champs clos où s'éprouve l'impossibilité de vaincre quiconque, si ce n'est soi-même. Adolphe, qui a trop durement tranché ses liens affectifs, est étrangement contrait de les retisser par l'écriture. Un travail de réparation se superpose au travail de la séparation, où le langage puise ses forces et s'épuise, incertain du rivage où la vérité s'offrira. Adolphe s'inscrit dans la grande tradition des romans sentimentaux dans la lignée de La Princesse de Clèves et de Manon Lescaut.

Voyages à travers l'Europe, lectures fiévreuses et désordonnées, découverte de la société et de ses travers, rencontres amoureuses et passionnées... tels sont les premiers pas dans le monde du jeune Benjamin Constant. A l'heure du bilan, l'auteur d'Adolphe pose sur sa jeunesse un regard tendre et amusé.

The volume contains 422 letters. Constant marries Charlotte von Hardenberg, which leads to an estrangement from Germaine de Staël, his fellow-writer and mistress of long standing. In the letters from this period, political life takes a back seat, and after the appearance of Wallstein his literary creativity enters a dormant phase. The reader is confronted above all with Constant’s turbulent private life.

This first volume, published under the supervision of Jean-Daniel Candaux and Lucia Omacini, assembles the texts produced between 1774 and 1799. The volume divides into three sections: Constant's essays written when still a boy; texts stemming from his study years in Scotland, France, Switzerland and Germany; and above all his first political writings (pamphlets, speeches, articles), which appeared during the Directoire and Consulat years. Other scholars involved in the making of this volume are Simone Balayé, Mauro Barberis, Claude Bruneel, Magda Campanini, Paul Delbouille, Edouard Guitton, Kurt Kloocke, Roland Mortier and Claude Reymond.

The twelfth volume of the Correspondance générale comprises more than 400 letters written in 1821–1822, two years of intense parliamentary and journalistic activity for Constant. Like the previous volumes, it offers unique insights into the intellectual and political life of the time, as well as into Constant’s relationships with his friends and family.

This XIII th volume comprises all the articles published by Benjamin Constant in 1819–1820, that is almost 120 contributions. Featured in the most influential liberal newspapers of the time (La Minerve française, La Renommée, Le Courrier français...), these texts shed light on an essential but little known aspect of Constant's political and intellectual commitment under the French Restauration.

Volume XV presents political texts written by Constant between 1819 and 1821, a period characterized by the success of the liberal party and the great domestic crisis in France caused by the assassination of the Duke of Berry. Constant’s writings react to the speeches presented to the Chamber of Deputies and reflect his journalist publications of those years, which will be published in volumes XII and XIII of the Œuvres complètes .