Roger Martin Du Gard
The Novelist and History
Description:... When he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1937, Roger Martin du Gard had achieved fame as the author of Jean Barois and the series of family novels entitled Les Thibault. His Oeuvres Complètes was published in 1955, three years before his death, with a Preface by Albert Camus. Using an interdisciplinary method, Professor Schalk traces the novelist's development, emphasizing the impact on his writing of such momentous events as the Dreyfus Affair and the First World War.
Martin du Gard is shown to be an important transitional figure in ways not heretofore recognized. His treatment of historical events is compared with that of such writers as Proust, Anatole France, Jules Romains, and Sartre; and the possible contribution of the novel to a greater understanding of history is explored. Citations from the novelist's correspondence help to document the analysis of his changing attitudes as they are reflected in his fiction.
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