Rolland, Romain

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ROLLAND, ROMAIN

ROLLAND, ROMAIN (1866–1944), French novelist and dramatist.

Romain Rolland was born in Clamecy (Nièvre), France. His life spanned two centuries and he played a notable part in the history of his time, involving himself frequently in public debate.

Rolland's family left Clamecy in 1880 so that he could study in Paris. There he attended Lycée Saint-Louis (1880–1882) and Lycée Louis-le-Grand (1882–1886) and went on to earn his bachelor of arts degree and pass the agrégation in history at the École Normale Supérieure (1886–1889). He attended the École Française in Rome (1889–1891) and obtained his doctorate from Paris University in 1895, where he wrote a thesis on Les Origines du théâtre lyrique moderne (The origins of modern lyric theater).

Although resigned to a life of teaching, Rolland was always determined to write. His hope was that his work would express his vision of the world as summed up as early as 1888 in the declaration of faith, or "Credo quia verum": arising from nothingness, he asserted, Man partook of Being, of which he was but a fragment; his earthly life was merely a dream and true life lay elsewhere—beyond death. But how were these two realities to be reconciled?

As a professor at the École Normale, and later (1903–1910) at the Sorbonne, Rolland hewed fast to his literary ambitions, even as he taught the history of music. He began as a playwright, choosing subjects from the classical world (Empedocles, Niobe, Caligula) or writing what he called "tragedies of faith" (The Siege of Mantua, SaintLouis, Jeanne de Piennes). None of these plays were produced.

Repelled by the literary and political atmosphere of the times, which he considered to be decadent, disillusioned, and in search of a faith, Rolland was drawn to socialism, which he felt held out the promise of renewal. He anticipated an era of revolutions but feared the violence that these upheavals were liable to precipitate. In 1897 he began a play on this subject, Les Vaincus (The defeated), which was never completed but which summed up his eternal dilemma: he was attracted by the heroic faith of revolutionaries, yet he could not embrace their violence. His enthusiasm nevertheless led him to write a cycle of plays highlighting the great moments of the French Revolution: Les Loups (1898; The wolves), Le Triomphe de la Raison (1899; The triumph of reason), Danton (1900), Le Quatorze juillet (1902; The fourteenth of July), and Le Temps viendra (1903; The Time will come).

Impressed by the productions of Maurice Pottecher's théâtre du Peuple (People's Theater) in Bussang (Vosges), Rolland lent his energies to this attempt to create a theater that would serve as a "tool of social struggle." But these efforts came to naught, and after setting forth his thoughts on this experience in Le théâtre du Peuple (1903), Rolland abandoned drama at least temporarily and turned his full attention to a project that he had been dreaming about for years: a novel for which he had already amassed copious notes.

It was Charles Péguy who made it possible for Rolland to embark on his great roman-fleuve, Jean-Christophe, by agreeing to serialize it in the pages of his fortnightly paper, Les Cahiers de la Quinzaine, which had already published the revolutionary dramas and the highly successful La Vie de Beethoven (1903)—the second of Rolland's "lives of famous men" (the first being Millet, 1902).

The ten volumes of Jean-Christophe appeared between 1904 and 1912. The first installment, Dawn, opens with a birth, and the series closes with New Day—the titles underlining the theme of the cyclical nature of life, of never-ending renewal as represented in the novel by the presence of the Rhine. By calling his German hero Krafft (strength), Rolland meant him to epitomize the power of life, which, though marked by much suffering, ends, echoing Beethoven, with a hymn to joy. From this point of view, Jean-Christophe may be considered a novel of education. But the work has another dimension, too, for Rolland placed his hero squarely in the Europe of the time: although German, Krafft visits France, Switzerland, and Italy in the course of the narrative. The author was thus able to paint a portrait of his era, and indeed a politically committed portrait. Predicting, in effect, the catastrophe then in the making, which emerged as World War I, the novel denounced the evil tendencies at work in each nation and constituted a last-minute appeal for European reconciliation. The novel's form was new. This was the first great roman-fleuve, tracing the entire course of the protagonist's life. Ultimately, however, it addressed the heart rather than the intelligence of the reader, playing above all on the emotions. Rolland himself saw the work as a poem—the poem of a life, or of Life itself—rather than a novel.

During these same years, Rolland completed his series of "heroic lives" with volumes on Michaelangelo (1906) and Leo Tolstoy (1911). His musicological work was represented by articles collected in Musiciens d'autrefois (1908; Musicians of yesterday) and Musiciens d'aujourd'hui (1908; Musicians of today). A study of Handel appeared in 1910 and Voyage musical au pays du passé (Musical voyage to the country of the past) in 1919.

Rolland's literary success (he was awarded the Vie Heureuse prize in 1905 and the Grand Prix of the Académie Française in 1913) won him international renown and allowed him to live by his writing alone. After two years on leave, he resigned his teaching post in 1912 and set to work on a new novel, different both in conception and in form from Jean-Christophe. This was Colas Breugnon, published only after the war, in 1919.

The coming of war in 1914 changed everything in Europe, and Rolland's life and work likewise took a new course. From Switzerland, he returned to the political struggles informing Jean-Christophe. In Au-dessus de la mêlée (Above the battle), a collection of articles published in 1915, he condemned the war, called for the belligerents to settle their differences peacefully, and became the voice of a passionate pacifism. His influence thereafter was substantial. In the same year, he received the Nobel prize in literature.

See alsoFrance; Pacifism; Péguy, Charles.