Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustin

Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustin

(born Dec. 23, 1804, Boulogne, France—died Oct. 13, 1869, Paris) French literary historian and critic. In 1825 he began contributing critical articles to periodicals. In essays collected in Critiques et portraits littéraires, 5 vol. (1832–39) and Portraits contemporains (1846), he developed a new approach to critiquing living writers that involved extensive biographical research to understand their mental attitudes. His famous “Monday Chats,” published in newspapers from 1849 to 1869, were detailed, well-rounded literary studies in which he applied historical frames of reference to contemporary writing. His methods revolutionized French criticism by freeing it from personal prejudice and partisan passions. His Port-Royal (1840–48) is a scholarly history of an abbey and of 17th-century France.