Jean Starobinski | |
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| Born | (1920-11-17)17 November 1920 Geneva, Switzerland |
| Died | 4 March 2019(2019-03-04) (aged 98) Morges, Switzerland |
| Occupation | Literary critic |
| Notable work | Montesquieu |
Jean Starobinski (17 November 1920 – 4 March 2019) was a Swissliterary critic.
Starobinski was born in Geneva in 1920, the son ofJewish physicians Aron Starobinski of Warsaw and Sulka Frydman of Lublin.
Both his parents left Poland in 1913. Aron Starobinski chose to study humanities as well as medicine, and his son Jean, who received his Swiss citizenship only in 1948, would follow his example, eventually becoming a practicing psychiatrist. Yet even in Switzerland, the Starobinski family could not escape reminders of a legacy of Europe-wide oppression. In November 1932, when Starobinski was 11 years old, in his family’s Geneva neighborhood of Plainpalais, murderous violence broke out against the Swiss Jewish socialist Jacques Dicker, who was leading an anti-fascist demonstration. The Swiss army fired upon the protesters, killing 13 and wounding 65.
He studied classical literature, and then medicine at theUniversity of Geneva, and graduated from that school with a doctorate in letters (Docteur ès lettres) and in medicine. He taughtFrench literature at theJohns Hopkins University, theUniversity of Basel and at the University of Geneva, where he also taught courses in thehistory of ideas and thehistory of medicine.
His existential and phenomenological literary criticism is sometimes grouped with the so-called "Geneva School". He wrote landmark works onFrench literature of the 18th century – including works on the writersJean-Jacques Rousseau,Denis Diderot,Voltaire – and also on authors of other periods (such asMichel de Montaigne). He also wrote on contemporary poetry, art, and the problems of interpretation. His books have been translated into dozens of languages.
His knowledge of medicine andpsychiatry brought him to study the history ofmelancholia (notably in theTrois Fureurs, 1974). He was the first scholar to publish work (in 1964) onFerdinand de Saussure's study ofanagrams.
Jean Starobinski was a member of theAcadémie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (a component of theInstitut de France) and other French, European and American learned academies. He held honorary degrees (honoris causa) from numerous universities in Europe and America.
Starobinski died on 4 March 2019 inMorges, Switzerland, aged 98.[1][2]
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