Existentialist writer and novelist, born in Paris, France. She studied philosophy with Sartre at the Sorbonne, where she became professor (19413). Closely associated with his literary activities after World War 2, she remained his companion until his death (1980). Her own works provide existentialism with an essentially feminine sensibility, notably Le Deuxième sexe (1949, The Second Sex) on women's rights, which became a classic of feminist literature, and Les Mandarins (1954, Prix Goncourt), describing existentialist circles in post-war Paris. However, her most enduring contribution to literature may be her memoirs. These include Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée (1963, Memories of a dutiful Daughter). With Sartre she founded the monthly review, Les Temps modernes, in 1945.
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Western Philosophy 20th-century philosophy, |
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|---|---|
| Simone de Beauvoir | |
| Name: | Simone de Beauvoir |
| Birth: | January 9, 1908 ( Paris, France ) |
| Death: | April 14, 1986 ( Paris, France ) |
| School/tradition: |
Existentialism Feminism |
| Main interests: | Politics, Feminism, Ethics |
| Notable ideas: | ethics of ambiguity, feminist ethics |
| Influences: | Descartes, Wollstonecraft, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Freud, the French existentialists |
| Influenced: | The French existentialists, feminists (specifically Betty Friedan) |
Simone de Beauvoir (January 9, 1908 – April 14, 1986) was a French author and philosopher.
Early years
Simone Lucie-Ernestine-Marie-Bertrand de Beauvoir was born on January 9, 1908 in Paris to Georges Bertrand and Françoise (Brasseur) de Beauvoir.
In 1929, de Beauvoir also became the youngest person ever to obtain the agrégation in philosophy. Certain people hold that de Beauvoir was in fact first in philosophy: they simply placed Sartre first due to the obvious aspect of being a man.
In 1943, de Beauvoir published L'Invitée (She Came to Stay, 1943), a fictionalized chronicle of her lesbian relationship with Olga Kosakiewicz, one of her students in the Rouen secondary school where she taught during the early 30s. The novel also delves into the complex relationship between de Beauvoir and Sartre, as well as how that relationship was affected by the ménage à trois with Kosakiewicz.
Later years
At the end of World War II, de Beauvoir and Sartre edited Les Temps Modernes, a political journal Sartre founded along with Maurice Merleau-Ponty and others. De Beauvoir used Les Temps Modernes to promote her own work and remained an editor until her death.
Although her book Pour Une Morale de L'ambiguïté (The Ethics of Ambiguity, 1947) has been little noticed, it is perhaps the most accessible point of entry into French existentialism. The ambiguity about which de Beauvoir writes clears up some inconsistencies that many, Sartre included, have found in major existential works such as Being and Nothingness.
De Beauvoir was uninhibitedly bisexual. In Chicago, Algren helped de Beauvoir achieve this elusive orgasm which in part inspired her to write The Second Sex, which was originally published as a two-volume book in France.
Thus in her own way, de Beauvoir anticipated the sexually charged feminism of Erica Jong and Germaine Greer. Algren, no paragon of primness himself, was outraged by the frank way de Beauvoir later described her American sexual experiences in Les Mandarins (dedicated to Algren and on whose character Lewis Brogan is based) and elsewhere, venting his outrage when reviewing American translations of her work. Much bearing on this episode in de Beauvoir's life, including her love letters to Algren, entered the public domain only after her death. On de Beauvoir's sexuality and the paper trail she left, see .
Woman: Myth and Reality
Simone de Beauvoir once wrote an essay called Woman:Myth and Reality.
The Second Sex
De Beauvoir's The Second Sex, published in French in 1949, sets out a feminist existentialism with a significant Freudian aspect. It is the (social) construction of Woman as the quintessential Other that de Beauvoir identifies as fundamental to women's oppression.
De Beauvoir argues that women have historically been considered deviant, abnormal. De Beauvoir says that this attitude has limited women's success by maintaining the perception that they are a deviation from the normal, and are outsiders attempting to emulate "normality".
De Beauvoir asserted that women are as capable of choice as men, and thus can choose to elevate themselves, moving beyond the 'immanence' to which they were previously resigned and reaching 'transcendence', a position in which one takes responsibility for oneself and the world, where one chooses one's freedom.
Bibliography
Some of Simone de Beauvoir's other major works include, Les Mandarins (The Mandarins, 1954);
She Came to Stay, (1943) Pyrrhus et Cinéas, (1944) The Blood of Others, (1945) Who Shall Die?, (1945) All Men are Mortal, (1946) The Ethics of Ambiguity, (1947) The Second Sex, (1949) America Day by Day, (1954) The Mandarins, (1954) Must We Burn Sade?, (1955) The Long March, (1957) Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, (1958) The Prime of Life, (1960) A Very Easy Death, (1964) Les Belles Images, (1966) The Woman Destroyed, (1967) The Coming of Age, (1970) All Said and Done, (1972) When Things of the Spirit Come First, (1979) Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre, (1981) Letters to Sartre, (1990) A Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algren, (1998)
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