Jules Romains

French playwright, poet, novelist, and essayist

• Born: August 26, 1885
• Birthplace: Saint-Julien-Chapteuil, France
• Died: August 14, 1972
• Place of death: Paris, France

Biography

Louis-Henri-Jean Farigoule’s contribution to French literature is noteworthy for its varied genres, originality of thought, and constancy through nearly seven decades. As Jules Romains (roh-man), he wrote steadily for most of his eighty-seven years, producing more than one hundred titles, among them a novel of twenty-seven volumes, internationally acclaimed dramas, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. In addition, as cofounder of the French literary movement “Unanimism,” Romains gave to literature an original manner in which to view the world.

Born in Saint-Julien-Chapteuil, Romains soon moved to Paris, where he lived until age nineteen. An intelligent student, he attended the same elementary school where his father was teaching. Later, he embarked on the challenging khâgne, the preparatory course for the prestigious Êcole Normale Supérieure. Academically, he remained at the head of his class. Romains began writing early, completing a comedy at age nine and a five-act political drama (“Tsar”) at fifteen. However, it was poetry that brought his first widespread literary recognition with the 1908 publication of his book La Vie unanime. After earning degrees in science and philosophy, he taught philosophy until deciding in 1919 to devote himself full-time to writing.

Romains broke with his Catholic upbringing at fourteen. Eventually, he conceived the general principles of Unanimism. At eighteen, while out walking through Paris one evening, he beheld a vision of the whole city collectively representing a single entity—all people, shops, animals, vehicles—comprising one collective consciousness, and he himself possessing an intuitive understanding of it. Together, Romains and his friend Georges Chennevière expanded this vision into the full-fledged literary movement named Unanimisme. Unanimism recognizes the potency of the unified group consciousness as well as the artist’s need intuitively to merge with it. At first presenting this new concept through essays and articles, Romains soon gave it a central role in his poetry and other literature. Also expressing his Unanimist ideas were his earliest dramas, produced at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier.

Romains married Gabrielle Gaffé in 1912, and they lived in Paris, often taking short trips together to nearby destinations. As Romains’s literary success and prosperity increased, he was able to buy a car and feed his love of travel with more distant jaunts.

Intelligent and sensitive from youth, Romains found the 1914 outbreak of World War I traumatic. As a student, he had been granted a shortened term of military service, but even that one-year army term proved disturbing, as his sensitivities were affronted by the coarseness of army life. Later, during the 1940 German occupation of France, Romains sought refuge in the United States, remaining there until the end of World War II. While in the United States, Romains further indulged his love of travel, visiting many major cities as well as Mexico, Canada, and Cuba.

In addition to receiving early acclaim for his poetry, Romains was also a successful playwright. His 1923 drama Dr. Knock has been called a comic masterpiece, and in 1932 it was made into the film Dr. Knock, starring well-known actor and producer Louis Jouvet. In 1931 Romains began writing the serial novel Les Hommes de bonne volonté. Published from 1932 to 1946, these twenty-seven volumes covered historical, domestic, and criminal aspects of 1908 to 1933 French society. Prior to this novel’s publication, critics sometimes accused Romains of didactic writing in the wake of his earlier teaching career. However, initial volumes in this novel series silenced much of that criticism, and the book remains among his best known.

Divorced in 1936, Romains married Lise Dreyfus. That same year, he became president of the French branch of the International Federation on PEN Clubs and was also elected its international president months later. Additionally, he served as international president of the Universal Society of the Theatre and in 1946 was elected to the French Academy. In the remaining decades until his death, Romains wrote numerous and varied works, only a few matching the force and quality of his pre-1946 work. Nonetheless, his reputation remained strong to the end, and his position in French literature is secure today.

Author Works

Drama:

L’Armée dans la ville, pr., pb. 1911 (verse play)

Cromedeyre-le-Vieil, wr. 1911-1918, pr., pb. 1920 (verse play)

Le Dictateur, wr. 1911–1925, pr., pb. 1926

M. Le Trouhadec saisi par la débauche, pb. 1921

Knock: Ou, Le Triomphe de la médecine, pr. 1923 (Dr. Knock, 1925)

Amédée et les messieurs en rang, pr. 1923 (Six Gentlemen in a Row, 1927)

La Scintillante, pr. 1924 (The Peach, 1933)

Le Mariage de le Trouhadec, pr., pb. 1925 (music by Georges Auric)

Démétrios, pr. 1925

Jean le Maufranc, pr. 1926

Volpone, pr. 1928 (adaptation of Stefan Zweig’s adaptation of Ben Jonson’s play; music by Auric)

Le Déjeuner marocain, pr., pb. 1929

Donogoo, pr. 1930

Musse: Ou, L’École de l’hypocrisie, pr. 1930 (revision of Jean le Maufranc)

Boën: Ou, La Possession des biens, pr. 1930

Le Roi masqué, pr. 1931

Grâce encore pour la terre, pr., pb. 1941

L’An mil, pr., pb. 1947

Barbazouk, wr. 1956, pr., pb. 1963 (radio play)

Long Fiction:

Mort de quelqu’un, 1911 (Death of a Nobody, 1914)

Les Copains, 1913 (The Boys in the Back Room, 1937)

Sur les quais de la Villette, 1914 (reprinted as Le Vin blanc de la Villette, 1923)

Psyché, 1922–1929 (The Body’s Rapture, 1933; includes Lucienne, 1922 [Lucienne’s Story]; Le Dieu des corps, 1928 [The Body’s Rapture]; Quand le navire . . ., 1929 [Love’s Questing])

Les Hommes de bonne volonté, 1932–1946 (Men of Good Will, 1933-1946; includes Le 6 Octobre, 1932 [The Sixth of October, 1933]; Crime de Quinette, 1932 [Quinette’s Crime, 1933]; Les Amours enfantines, 1932 [Children’s Loves, 1934]; Éros de Paris, 1932 [Eros in Paris, 1934]; Les Superbes, 1933 [The Proud, 1934]; Les Humbles, 1933 [The Meek, 1934]; Recherche d’une église, 1934 [The Lonely, 1935]; Province, 1934 [Provincial Interlude, 1935]; Montée des perils, 1935 [Flood Warning, 1936]; Les Pouvoirs, 1935 [The Powers That Be, 1936]; Recours à l’abîme, 1936 [To the Gutter, 1937]; Les Créateurs, 1936 [To the Stars, 1937]; Mission à Rome, 1937 [Mission to Rome, 1938]; Le Drapeau noir, 1937 [The Black Flag, 1938]; Prélude à Verdun, 1938 [The Prelude, 1939]; Verdun, 1938 [The Battle, 1939]; Vorge contre Quinette, 1939 [Vorge Against Quinette, 1941]; La Douceur de la vie, 1939 [The Sweets of Life, 1941]; Cette grand lueur à l’Est, 1941 [Promise of Dawn, 1942]; Le Monde est ton aventure, 1941 [The World Is Your Adventure, 1942]; Journées dans la montagne, 1942 [Mountain Days, 1944]; Les Travaux et les joies, 1943 [Work and Play, 1944]; Naissance de la bande, 1944 [The Gathering of the Ganges, 1945]; Comparutions, 1944 [Offered in Evidence, 1945]; Le Tapis magique, 1946 [The Magic Carpet, 1946]; Françoise, 1946 [English translation, 1946]; Le 7 Octobre, 1946 [The Seventh of October, 1946])

Le Moulin et l’hospice, 1949

Le Fils de Jerphanion, 1956

Une Femme singulière, 1957 (The Adventuress, 1958)

Le Besoin de voir clair, 1958

Mémoires de Madame Chauverel, 1959–1960

Un Grand Honnête Homme, 1961

Short Fiction:

Le Bourg régénéré, 1906

Nomentanus le réfugié, 1943

Tu ne tueras point, 1943 (Thou Shalt Not Kill, 1943)

Bertrand de Ganges, 1944

Violations de frontières, 1951 (Tussles with Time, 1952)

Portraits d’inconnus, 1962

Poetry:

L’Âme des hommes, 1904

La Vie unanime, 1908

Un Être en marche, 1910

Odes et prières, 1913

Europe, 1916

Le Voyage des amants, 1920

Ode Génoise, 1925

Chants des dix années, 1928

L’Homme blanc, 1937

Choix de poèmes, 1948

Maisons, 1953

Pierres levées, 1957

Screenplay:

Donogoo-Tonka: Ou, Les Miracles de la science, 1920

Nonfiction:

Manuel de déification, 1910

Puissances de Paris, 1911

Au-dessus de la mêlee, 1915

La Vision extra-rétinienne et le sens paroptique, 1920 (Eyeless Sight, 1924)

Problèmes d’aujourd’hui, 1931

Problèmes européens, 1933

Pour l’esprit et la liberté, 1937

Cela dépend de vous, 1938

Sept Mystères du destin de l’Europe, 1940 (The Seven Mysteries of Europe, 1940)

Messages aux français, 1941

Une Vue des choses, 1941 (in I Believe, 1939)

Salsette découvre l’Amérique, 1942 (Salsette Discovers America, 1942)

Le Problème no. 1, 1947

Saints de notre calendrier, 1952

Confidences d’un auteur dramatique, 1953

Examen de conscience des français, 1954 (A Frenchman Examines His Conscience, 1955)

Passengers de cette planète, où allons nous?, 1955

Situation de la terre, 1958 (As It Is on Earth, 1962)

Souvenirs et confidences d’un écrivain, 1958

Hommes, médecins, machines, 1959

Ai-je fait ce que j’ai voulu?, 1964

Lettre ouverte contre une vaste conspiration, 1966 (Open Letter against a Vast Conspiracy, 1967)

Amitiés et rencontres, 1970

Bibliography

Boak, Denis. Jules Romains. New York: Twayne, 1974. Widely acclaimed as the definitive biographical and literary source on Romains, Boak’s study comprehensively covers the life and work of the writer.

Madden, David. “David Madden on Jules Romains’s Death of a Nobody.” In Rediscoveries II. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1988. Madden discusses Romains’s Death of a Nobody, a novel in which the roots of his ideas of unanimism can be seen.

Moore, Harry T. Twentieth-Century French Literature to World War II. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1966. Romains’s contributions as a playwright between the world wars are examined for their Unanimist themes and comedic characteristics.

Stansbury, Milton H. French Novelists of Today. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1966. Choosing Romains in part for his “colorful personality,” Stansbury offers a condensed biography and survey of Romains’s most recognized writings.