Marcel Raymond (December 20, 1897,Geneva – November 28, 1981, Geneva) was a Swissliterary critic who specialized inFrench literature. He is generally grouped with the so-called "Geneva School".
Marcel Raymond first studied in Geneva, and then moved to France to study at theSorbonne in Paris under the scholarsHenri Chamard (a specialist inLa Pléiade) andAbel Lefranc. He received his doctorate in 1927 with a dissertation on the influence ofPierre de Ronsard onFrench poetry (1550–1585); published shortly after, the work has become a classic (it was republished in 1965). Raymond's subsequent study of French poetry from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth –DeBaudelaire ausurréalisme (1933) – brought him universal critical praise. In it he developed the idea that poetry is a fully engaged act and that a poem should be appreciated as an organic production that requires an intimate act of reading.
Raymond taught at theUniversity of Leipzig, at theUniversity of Basel and, in 1936, succeededAlbert Thibaudet at theUniversity of Geneva, where he would stay until his retirement in 1962. At Geneva, he became friends withGeorges Poulet and Albert Béguin, and along withJean Starobinski andJean Rousset they formed the core of what would come to be called theGeneva School of literary criticism.
During the Second World War, Raymond lost his father and several friends (includingBenjamin Crémieux who died in aconcentration camp), but he poured himself into essays, critical editions and anthologies onMontesquieu,Agrippa d'Aubigné,Victor Hugo andPaul Valéry. After the war, this work continued onPierre Bayle,Pierre de Ronsard,Arthur Rimbaud,Paul Verlaine,Senancour,Baudelaire, etc. But the majority of his post-war work was focused onJean-Jacques Rousseau, and he was asked to participate with Bernard Gagnebin on the critical edition of Rousseau's works for theBibliothèque de la Pléiade. His 1955 book,Baroque et renaissance poétique would complete his work on 16th and 17th century poetry.
In 1962 he retired from teaching. His wife died in 1963. His later work comprises both poetry (Poèmes pour l'absente dedicated to his wife), autobiographical works (Le Sel et la cendre,Souvenirs d'un enfant sage), fragments of a diary (Le Trouble et la présence,Écrit au crépuscule), philosophical reflection (Par-delà les eaux sombres), literary theory (Vérité et poésie,Être et dire) and studies on Senancour,Fénelon andJacques Rivière.
In all of his work on French poetry and on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the fundamental principle of Raymond's approach was a focus on the ways literature comes out of a contemplative discovery of the self within the world.
