Henri Frédéric Amiel (; 27 September 1821 – 11 May 1881) was a Swiss

moral philosopher Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied ethics ...

, poet, and critic.

Biography

Born in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

in 1821, Amiel was descended from a

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...

family that moved to

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

following the revocation of the

Edict of Nantes The Edict of Nantes () was an edict signed in April 1598 by Henry IV of France, King Henry IV and granted the minority Calvinism, Calvinist Protestants of France, also known as Huguenots, substantial rights in the nation, which was predominantl ...

. After losing his parents at an early age, Amiel travelled widely, became intimate with the intellectual leaders of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, and made a special study of

German philosophy German philosophy, meaning philosophy in the German language or philosophy by German people, in its diversity, is fundamental for both the analytic and continental traditions. It covers figures such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. In 1849 he was appointed professor of aesthetics at the academy of Geneva, and in 1854 became professor of moral philosophy. These appointments, conferred by the democratic party, deprived him of the support of the aristocratic party, whose patronage dominated all the culture of the city. This isolation inspired the one book by which Amiel is still known, the ''Journal Intime'' ("Private Journal"), which, published after his death, obtained a European reputation. It was translated into English by British writer

Mary Augusta Ward Mary Augusta Ward (''née'' Arnold; 11 June 1851 – 24 March 1920) was a British literature, British novelist who wrote under her married name as Mrs Humphry Ward. She worked to improve education for the poor, setting up a Mary Ward Centre, ...

at the suggestion of academic Mark Pattison. GraveHenriFredericAmiel-CimetiereClarensVD RomanDeckert29022024

Although modest in volume of output, Amiel's ''Journal'' gained a sympathy that the author had failed to obtain in his life. In addition to the ''Journal'', he produced several volumes of

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

and wrote studies on

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...

, Madame de Stael and other writers. His extensive correspondence with Égérie, his muse name for Louise Wyder, was preserved and published in 2004. He died in Geneva on 11 May 1881, at the age of 59. He was buried at the cemetery of Clarens in the canton of Vaud. The tombstone bears an inscription with a quote from the

Epistle to the Galatians The Epistle to the Galatians is the ninth book of the New Testament. It is a letter from Paul the Apostle to a number of Early Christian communities in Galatia. Scholars have suggested that this is either the Galatia (Roman province), Roman pro ...

6,8:

"CELUI QUI SEME POUR L'ESPRIT MOISSONERA DE L'ESPRIT LA VIE ETERNELLE." ("whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.")

The French philosopher Ludovic Dugas, in trying to describe a new psychological phenomenon, took the word

depersonalization Depersonalization is a dissociative phenomenon characterized by a subjective feeling of detachment from oneself, manifesting as a sense of disconnection from one's thoughts, emotions, sensations, or actions, and often accompanied by a feeling of ...

from an entry in his ''Journal intime'', "Everything is strange to me, I can be outside of my body, of me as an individual, I am depersonalized, detached, away". Dugas took this as a literal description, but a few paragraphs later Amiel clarifies: "it seems to me that these mental experiences (transformations mentales) are no more than philosophical experiences. I am not committed to any one in particular".

Works

* ''Berlin au printemps de l’année 1848'' (1849) * ''Du mouvement littéraire dans la Suisse romane et de son avenir'' (1849) * ''Grains de mil'' (1854) * ''Il penseroso'' (1858) * ''La Cloche'' (1860) * ''La Part du rêve'' (1863) * ''L’Escalade de MDCII'' (1875) * ''Charles le Téméraire'' (1876) * ''Les Étrangères'' (1876) * ''L’Enseignement supérieur à Genève depuis la fondation de l’Académie depuis le 5 juin 1559'' (1878) * ''Jean-Jacques Rousseau jugé par les Genevois d’aujourd’hui'' (1879) * ''Jour à jour'' (1880) * ''Fragments d’un journal intime'' (1884), 2nd ed. * ''Amiel's Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel'' (1885), trans. by Mrs. Humphry Ward
Description
an
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Macmillan. * ''Philine'' (1927) * ''Lettres de jeunesse'' (1904) * ''Essais, critiques'' (1931)

References

External links

* *
Works by Henry Frédéric Amiel
at

Hathi Trust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries. Its holdings include content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digit ...

*
www.amiel.org/atelier/
website in French dedicated to Henri-Frédéric Amiel {{DEFAULTSORT:Amiel, Henri-Frederic 1821 births 1881 deaths Writers from Geneva Swiss Protestants Swiss writers in French 19th-century Swiss philosophers 19th-century Christian mystics Protestant mystics Christian poets Philosophers of art Protestant philosophers Swiss diarists Swiss people of French descent Swiss poets in French Swiss male poets 19th-century Swiss poets 19th-century Swiss male writers 19th-century diarists

Biography

Works

See also

References

Further reading

External links