Bernanos, Georges

Bernanos, Georges (zhôrzh bĕrnänōs`), 1888–1948, French novelist and polemicist. Profoundly Catholic, Bernanos attacked modern materialism and advocated a moral and ethical order based on the teachings of the Church. His novels The Star of Satan (1926, tr. 1940) and The Diary of a Country Priest (1936, tr. 1937) are powerful accounts of intense spiritual struggle and reflect his mysticism. Dialogue des Carmelites (1949) was adapted for the stage in 1952. A believer in monarchy, Bernanos was active in Royalist causes until the Spanish civil war. In 1938, after the Munich pact, which he considered a shameful instance of appeasement, he settled in Brazil and remained there until 1945. His political writings include Les Grands Cimetières sous la lune (1938, tr. A Diary of My Times, 1938), indicting Franco's policies in the Spanish civil war, and Lettre aux Anglais (1942, tr. Plea for Liberty, 1944).

Bibliography

See studies by T. S. Molnar (1960), G. R. Blumenthal (1965), P. Hebblewaite (1965), W. S. Bush (1969), and R. Speaight (1974).

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Bernanos, Georges

(born Feb. 20, 1888, Paris, France—died July 5, 1948, Neuilly-sur-Seine) French novelist and polemical writer. One of the most original and independent Roman Catholic writers of his time and a man of humour and humanity, he abhorred materialism and compromise with evil. His masterpiece, The Diary of a Country Priest (1936), is the story of a young priest's war against sin. Dialogues of the Carmelites (1949), a screenplay about 16 nuns martyred during the French Revolution, was the basis for an opera by Francis Poulenc (1957).