Les nourritures terrestres
Encyclopedia
The Fruits of the Earth is a prose-poem by André Gide
, published in France in 1897.
The book was written in 1895 (the year of Gide's marriage) and appeared in a review in 1896 before publication the next year. Gide admitted to the intellectual influence of Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra but the true genesis was the author's own journey from the deforming influence of his puritanical religious upbringing to liberation in the arms of North African boys. Andre Maurois
draws attention to the similarity of moral outlook between the two works in these words: "Like Thus Spake Zarathustra, Les Nourritures Terrestres is a gospel in the root sense of the word: glad tidings. Tidings about the meaning of life addressed to a dearly loved disciple whom Gide calls Nathanael." "Nathaniel" comes from the Hebrew name נְתַנְאֵל, "Nethan'el", meaning "God has given".
The book has three characters: the narrator, the narrator's teacher, Menalque, and the young Nathanael. Menalque has two lessons to impart through the narrator. The first is to flee families, rules, stability. Gide himself suffered so much from "snug homes" that he harped on its dangers all his life. The second is to seek adventure, excess, fervor; one should loathe the lukewarm, security, all tempered feelings. "Not affection, Nathanael: love ..."
A subtly structured collection of lyrical fragments, reminiscences, poems, travel notes, and aphorisms, the book came to command such a following after World War I that Gide wrote a preface stressing the work's self-critical dimension. Nevertheless it influenced a generation of young writers, including the existentialists Albert Camus
and Jean-Paul Sartre
, to cast off all that is artificial or merely conventional.
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
, published in France in 1897.
The book was written in 1895 (the year of Gide's marriage) and appeared in a review in 1896 before publication the next year. Gide admitted to the intellectual influence of Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra but the true genesis was the author's own journey from the deforming influence of his puritanical religious upbringing to liberation in the arms of North African boys. Andre Maurois
André Maurois
André Maurois, born Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog was a French author.-Life:Maurois was born in Elbeuf and educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen, both in Normandy. Maurois was the son of Ernest Herzog, a Jewish textile manufacturer, and Alice Herzog...
draws attention to the similarity of moral outlook between the two works in these words: "Like Thus Spake Zarathustra, Les Nourritures Terrestres is a gospel in the root sense of the word: glad tidings. Tidings about the meaning of life addressed to a dearly loved disciple whom Gide calls Nathanael." "Nathaniel" comes from the Hebrew name נְתַנְאֵל, "Nethan'el", meaning "God has given".
The book has three characters: the narrator, the narrator's teacher, Menalque, and the young Nathanael. Menalque has two lessons to impart through the narrator. The first is to flee families, rules, stability. Gide himself suffered so much from "snug homes" that he harped on its dangers all his life. The second is to seek adventure, excess, fervor; one should loathe the lukewarm, security, all tempered feelings. "Not affection, Nathanael: love ..."
A subtly structured collection of lyrical fragments, reminiscences, poems, travel notes, and aphorisms, the book came to command such a following after World War I that Gide wrote a preface stressing the work's self-critical dimension. Nevertheless it influenced a generation of young writers, including the existentialists Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
and Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
, to cast off all that is artificial or merely conventional.
External links
- Les nourritures terrestres, original French version in the public domain at archive.org