JEAN GIRAUDOUX

'Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux' (October 29, 1882 – January 31, 1944) was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II.^[1]

Contents

Biography

Partial listing of works

Notes

External links

Biography

Born in Bellac, Haute-Vienne, Giraudoux's father, Léger Giraudoux, worked for the Ministry of Transportation. Giraudoux studied at the Lycée Lakanal, in Paris and upon graduation traveled extensively around Europe. After his return to France in 1910, Giraudoux accpeted a position with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With the outbreak of World War I, he served with honors and in 1915 he became the first writer ever to be awarded the wartime Legion of Honor.^[2]
He was married in 1918, and in the subsequent period between the two World Wars Giraudoux produced the majority of his writing. He first achieved literary success through several of his novels, notably ''Siegfried et le Limousin'' (1922) and ''Eglantine'' (1927), but it is his plays that gained him international renown. A meeting with Louis Jouvet, in 1928, stimulated his writing.
Before World War II he published in 1939 a highly antisemitic political essay called "Pleins pouvoirs" (''Full power'').
At the start of the war he served as Minister of Information under Premier Édouard Daladier, but retired in January 1941.
He is buried in the Cimetière de Passy in Paris.

Partial listing of works

★ Comedies

★
★ ''Amphitryon 38''- see Amphitrion

★
★ ''Apollo of Bellac''

★
★ ''The Madwoman of Chaillot''

★ Dramas

★
★ ''The Trojan war will not take place''

★
★ ''Electre''

★
★ ''Ondine''

★
★ ''Sodome et Gomorrhe''

Notes

1. Brockett, Oscar. ''History of the Theatre'' Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 1968. p. 621.
2. Fowlie, Wallace. ''Jean Giraudoux'' in Gassner, John and Edward Quinn ed. ''The Reader's Encyclopedia of World Drama.'' New York, Thomas Crowell. 1969. p. 359.

External links

★ The Theatrical Art of Jean Giraudoux

★ Analysis of the play ''Ondine'' (in French)