Jean-Pierre Vernant (; January 4, 1914 – January 9, 2007) was a French

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

and

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and v ...

, specialist in

ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

. Influenced by

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anth ...

, Vernant developed a structuralist approach to Greek

myth Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrati ...

tragedy Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy i ...

, and society which would itself be influential among classical scholars. He was an honorary professor at the

Collège de France The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment ('' grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris ...

Biography

Born in

Provins Provins () is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. Known for its well-preserved medieval architecture and importance throughout the Middle Ages as an economic center and a host of annu ...

, France, Vernant at first studied

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some s ...

, receiving his

agrégation In France, the ''agrégation'' () is a competitive examination for civil service in the French public education system. Candidates for the examination, or ''agrégatifs'', become ''agrégés'' once they are admitted to the position of ''profes ...

in this field in 1937. A member of the Young Communists (''Jeunes Communistes''), Vernant joined the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

during World War II and was a member of '' Libération-sud'' (founded by Emmanuel d'Astier). He later commanded the

French Forces of the Interior The French Forces of the Interior (french: Forces françaises de l'Intérieur) were French resistance fighters in the later stages of World War II. Charles de Gaulle used it as a formal name for the resistance fighters. The change in designation ...

(FFI) in

Haute-Garonne Haute-Garonne (; oc, Nauta Garona, ; en, Upper Garonne) is a department in the Occitanie region of Southwestern France. Named after the river Garonne, which flows through the department. Its prefecture and main city is Toulouse, the country's ...

under the pseudonym of "Colonel Berthier." He was a Companion of the Liberation. After the war, he remained a member of the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Uni ...

until 1969. He entered the

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...

(CNRS) in 1948 and, under the influence of

Louis Gernet Louis Gernet (28 November 1882 – 29 January 1962) was a French philologist and sociologist. Life A student at the École Normale Supérieure (class of 1902), he received a licentiate in law and agrégation in grammar. In 1917, supported by t ...

, turned to the study of ancient Greek anthropology. Ten years later, he became director of studies at the

École des hautes études en sciences sociales The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (french: École des hautes études en sciences sociales; EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and ''grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The ...

(EHESS). In 1971 he was professor in the

University of São Paulo The University of São Paulo ( pt, Universidade de São Paulo, USP) is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian public university and the country's most prestigious educational institution, the best ...

. This visit was also an act of protest that he made with

François Châtelet François Châtelet (27 April 1925 – 26 December 1985) was a historian of philosophy, political philosophy and professor in the socratic tradition. He was the husband of philosopher Noëlle Châtelet, the sister of Lionel Jospin. Biogr ...

against the

brazilian military government The military dictatorship in Brazil ( pt, ditadura militar) was established on 1 April 1964, after a coup d'état by the Brazilian Armed Forces, with support from the United States government, against President João Goulart. The Brazilian dict ...

(dictatorship). He was a member of the French sponsorship committee for the

Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the first decade of the 21st century and the third millennium, the years 2001 to 2010, as the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. This followed ...

. He supported the funding organisation ''Non-Violence XXI.'' He was awarded the CNRS gold medal in 1984. In 2002, he received an honorary doctorate at the

University of Crete The University of Crete (UoC; Greek: Πανεπιστήμιο Κρήτης) is a multi-disciplinary, research-oriented institution in Crete, Greece, located in the cities of Rethymno (official seat) and Heraklion, and one of the country's most ac ...

. Vernant died a few days after his 93rd birthday in

Sèvres Sèvres (, ) is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, Île-de-France region. The commune, which had a population of 23,251 as of 2018, is known for it ...

. After his death, his name was given to a French highschool in

, le "Lycée Jean-Pierre Vernant".

Influence

The structuralist approach pioneered by Vernant has been influential on a wide range of classical scholars. More specifically, Vernant's reading of the myth of Prometheus was an important influence on philosopher Bernard Stiegler's book, '' Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus''.

Criticism

Vernant's approach has been heavily criticized, particularly among Italian philologists, even by those of Marxist tendencies. He has been accused of a fundamentally

ahistorical Ahistoricism refers to a lack of concern for history, historical development, or tradition. Charges of ahistoricism are frequently critical, implying that the subject is historically inaccurate or ignorant (for example, an ''ahistorical'' attitud ...

approach, allegedly going as far as to manipulate his sources by describing them in categories which do not apply (

polysemy Polysemy ( or ; ) is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a symbol, a morpheme, a word, or a phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses. Polysemy is distinct from ''monosemy'', where a word has a single ...

and

ambiguity Ambiguity is the type of meaning in which a phrase, statement or resolution is not explicitly defined, making several interpretations plausible. A common aspect of ambiguity is uncertainty. It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement ...

). Vincenzo Di Benedetto, ''La tragedia greca di Jean-Pierre Vernant'', in: ''Belfagor'' 32 (1977), p. 461-468; see also Vincenzo Di Benedetto, ''L'ambiguo nella tragedia greca: una categoria fuorviante'', in: '' Euripide "

Medea In Greek mythology, Medea (; grc, Μήδεια, ''Mēdeia'', perhaps implying "planner / schemer") is the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, a niece of Circe and the granddaughter of the sun god Helios. Medea figures in the myth of Jason and ...

", introd. di V. Di Benedetto, trad. di E. Cerbo'', p. 62-75,

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city has ...

1997.

Awards

Honours

* Commander of the

Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

* Grand Cross of the

Ordre national du Mérite The Ordre national du Mérite (; en, National Order of Merit) is a French order of merit with membership awarded by the President of the French Republic, founded on 3 December 1963 by President Charles de Gaulle. The reason for the order's esta ...

Compagnon de la Libération The Order of Liberation (french: Ordre de la Libération) is a French Order which was awarded to heroes of the Liberation of France during World War II. It is a very high honour, second only after the ''Légion d’Honneur'' (Legion of Honou ...

Croix de Guerre The ''Croix de Guerre'' (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first aw ...

* Officier of the

Ordre des Arts et des Lettres The ''Ordre des Arts et des Lettres'' (Order of Arts and Letters) is an order of France established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture. Its supplementary status to the was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose i ...

* Commander of the

Order of the Phoenix (Greece) The Order of the Phoenix ( el, Τάγμα του Φοίνικος) is an order of Greece, established on 13 May 1926, by the republican government of the Second Hellenic Republic to replace the defunct Royal Order of George I. The order was r ...

Awards and prizes

* Médaille d'or du CNRS, 1984 * Premio di Storia, San Marino, 1991 * Award for Humanistic Studies,

American Academy of Arts & Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

, 1993

Doctor Honoris Causa

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the be ...

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a Red brick university, red brick Russell Group research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Society of Merchant Venturers, Merchant Venturers' sc ...

Masaryk University Masaryk University (MU) ( cs, Masarykova univerzita; la, Universitas Masarykiana Brunensis) is the second largest university in the Czech Republic, a member of the Compostela Group and the Utrecht Network. Founded in 1919 in Brno as the sec ...

Brno Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republi ...

University of Naples The University of Naples Federico II ( it, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) is a public university in Naples, Italy. Founded in 1224, it is the oldest public non-sectarian university in the world, and is now organized into 26 depar ...

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

(2002) *

New Bulgarian University New Bulgarian University ( bg, Нов български университет, also known and abbreviated as НБУ, NBU) is a private university based in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Its campus is in the western district of the city, known ...

(2004)

Other awards

* Associate member of the Académie royale de Belgique * Foreign honorary member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

* Corresponding Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...

* Honorary Member of the

Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, known as the Hellenic Society, was founded in 1879 to advance the study of Greek language, literature, history, art and archaeology in the Ancient, Byzantine and Modern periods. The first Presid ...

* Membre de l'

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

Select publications

* ''Les origines de la pensée grecque'' (Paris), 1962 (= ''Origins of Greek Thought'', 1982) * ''Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs: Etudes de psychologie historique'' (Paris), 1965 (= ''Myth and Thought among the Greeks'', 1983) * With

Pierre Vidal-Naquet Pierre Emmanuel Vidal-Naquet (; 23 July 1930 – 29 July 2006) was a French historian who began teaching at the '' École des hautes études en sciences sociales'' (EHESS) in 1969. Vidal-Naquet was a specialist in the study of Ancient Greece, but ...

: ''Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne'', 2 vols. (Paris), 1972, 1986 (= ''Tragedy and Myth in Ancient Greece'', 1981; ''Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece'', 1988) * ''Mythe et société en Grèce ancienne'' (Paris), 1974 (= ''Myth and Society in Ancient Greece'', 1978) * ''Divination et rationalité'', 1974 * With

Marcel Detienne Marcel Detienne (October 11, 1935 in Liège, Belgium – March 21, 2019 in Nemours, France) was a Belgian historian and specialist in the study of ancient Greece. He was a professor at Johns Hopkins University, where he held the Basil L. Gilde ...

: ''Les ruses de l'intelligence: La mètis des Grecs'' (Paris), 1974 (= ''Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society'', 1977) * ''Religion grecque, religions antiques'' (Paris), 1976 * ''Religion, histoires, raisons'' (Paris), 1979 * With Marcel Detienne: ''La cuisine de sacrifice en pays grec'' (Paris), 1979 (= ''Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks'', 1989) * With Pierre Vidal-Naquet: ''Travail et esclavage en Grèce ancienne'' (Brussels), 1988 * ''L'individu, la mort, l'amour: soi-même et l'autre en Grèce ancienne'' (Paris), 1989 * ''Mythe et religion en Grèce ancienne'' (Paris), 1990 * ''Figures, idoles, masques'' (Paris), 1990 * With Pierre Vidal-Naquet: ''La Grèce ancienne'', 3 vols. (Paris), 1990–92 * ''Mortals and Immortals: Collected Essays'' (Princeton), 1991 * With Pierre Vidal-Naquet: ''Œdipe et ses mythes'' (Brussels), 1994 * ''Entre mythe et politique'' (Paris), 1996 * With

Jean Bottéro Jean Bottéro (30 August 1914 – 15 December 2007) was a French historian born in Vallauris. He was a major Assyriologist and a renowned expert on the Ancient Near East. He died in Gif-sur-Yvette. Biography He participated with other colleagues ...

and Clarisse Herrenschmidt: ''L'orient ancien et nous'' (Paris), 1996.
Ancestor of the West: Writing, Reasoning, and Religion in Mesopotamia, Elam, and Greece
', translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. University of Chicago Press, 2000. . * With Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux: ''Dans l'œil du miroir'' (Paris), 1997 * '' L'univers, les dieux, les hommes: récits grecs des origines'' Paris, Le Seuil, 1999 (= ''The Universe, The Gods, and Men: Ancient Greek Myths'', 2001) * ''La traversée des frontières'' (Paris), 2004

References

External links

''Independent'' obituary
by Oswyn Murray
Page with biographical information, French language

Citation for Oxford honorary degree

Council of Europe page

Links to online interviews and media presentations by Vernant
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vernant, Jean-Pierre 1914 births 2007 deaths People from Provins French Communist Party members Collège de France faculty Historians of antiquity French classical scholars Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni Lycée Carnot alumni University of São Paulo faculty Members of Liberation-Sud Members of Academia Europaea Companions of the Liberation French hellenists French anthropologists 20th-century French historians School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences faculty Communist members of the French Resistance Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France) Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy Officiers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Commandeurs of the Légion d'honneur Grand Officers of the Ordre national du Mérite 20th-century anthropologists