Henry de Montherlant

Infobox Writer
name = Henry de Montherlant


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birthname = Henry Millon de Montherlant
birthdate = birth date|1896|04|26|df=y
birthplace = Paris, France
deathdate = death date and age|1972|09|21|1896|04|26|df=y
deathplace = Paris, France
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period = early-mid 20th century
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Henry Millon de Montherlant (20 April, 1896 – September 21, 1972) was a French essayist, novelist and one of the leading French dramatists of the twentieth century.

Biography

Early years

Born in Paris France, a descendant a noble Picard family, he was educated in the private schools of Jeanson-de-Sailly, and Sainte-Croix academy at Neuilly-sur-Seine. After the death of his father and mother in 1914 and 1915, he went to live with his doting grandmother and eccentric uncles.cite web | author=Louis Begley | title=The Pitiless Universe of Montherlant | url=http://www.nysun.com/arts/pitiless-universe-of-montherlant/58590/ | work=The New York Sun | date=18 July 2007 | accessdate=2008-10-01]

Mobilised in 1916, he was wounded and decorated. Marked by his experience of war, he wrote "Songe" ('Dream'), an autobiographic novel, as well as his "Chant funèbre pour les morts de Verdun" ("Funeral Chant for the Dead at Verdun"), both exaltations of heroism during the Great War.

Career

His early successes were works such as the tetralogy "Les jeunes filles" ("The Young Girls") (1936-1939) and "Les célibataires" ("The Bachelors") (1934). At this time, Montherlant traveled regularly, mainly to Spain, Italy, and Algeria.

From 1929 he began to write plays such as "La reine morte" (1934), "Pasiphaé" (1936), "Le Maître de Santiago" (1947), "Port-Royal" (1954) and "Le Cardinal d'Espagne" (1960). He is particularly remembered as a playwright. In his plays, as well as in his novels, he frequently portrayed heroic characters displaying the moral standards he professed.

In "Le solstice de Juin" (1941) he expressed his admiration for the German army and claimed that France had been justly defeated and conquered in 1940. Like many scions of the old aristocracy, he had hated the Third Republic, especially as it had become in the aftermath of the Dreyfus Affair.

Montherlant concealed his pederastic tendencies from the public during his lifetime. [cite web | author= | title=Montherlant sans masque de Pierre Sipriot | url=http://culture-et-debats.over-blog.com/article-2338548.html | publisher=Culture & questions qui font débats | language=French | date=28 April2006 | accessdate=2008-10-01] In 1912, he had been expelled from the Sainte-Croix de Neuilly academy for a relationship with a fellow student. His play "La Ville dont le prince est un enfant" (1952) and novel "Les garçons" (published in 1969 but written four or five decades earlier) and his correspondence with Roger Peyrefitte, (author of "Les amitiés particulières" (1943), also about sexual relationships between boys at a Roman Catholic boarding school), are the main testaments to this side of his character. Christophe Malavoy directed and starred in a 1997 television movie adaption of "La Ville dont le prince est un enfant".

Personal life

Montherlant was attacked and beaten in the streets of Paris in 1968 that caused him serious injury and blindness in one eye. blind. The British writer Peter Quennell, who edited a collection of translations of Montherlant's works, recalls that Montherlant attributed the eye injury to "a fall"; he dates the incident to 1968, and mentions that Montherlant suffered from vertigo. [cite book | last=Quennell | first=Peter | coauthors= | title=The Wanton Chase | edition=First edition | location=Lonon | publisher=Collins | year=1980 | isbn=0002165260 ]

Montherlant died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head after swallowing a cyanide capsule in 1972.

Honours and awards

In 1960 Montherlant was elected a member of the Académie française, taking the seat which had belonged to André Siegfried, a political writer. His presentation speech dwelt mercilessly on the geography of New Zealand. He was an Officer of the French Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur.

References

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