Books by Charles Péguy

The first critical edition of Peguy's poetry to appear in English, this volume offers a comprehensive theology ordered around the often-neglected second theological virtue, which is incarnated in his celebrated image of the "little girl Hope". This is a title in the Ressourcement: Retrieval and Renewal in Catholic Thought series.

Charles Péguy entre à l'Ecole normale supérieure où Bergson fut l'un de ses professeurs. Très tôt, ses prises de position déroutent : croyant, il critique l'Eglise catholique, socialiste, il s'oppose au pacifisme et à l'internationalisme de la gauche, et nationaliste, il ne rejoint jamais la classe bourgeoise. En 1900, il crée sa propre revue, Cahiers de la quinzaine qui représente un témoignage inégalé sur la vie intellectuelle de l'époque. Si Charles Péguy s'était éloigné de la religion, la menace allemande lui révèle l'existence d'un 'mal universel' et le rapproche de la foi. En effet, outre ses essais philosophiques, il est l'auteur de deux œuvres consacrées à Jeanne d'Arc (' Jeanne d'Arc' et 'Mystère de la charité de Jeanne d'Arc'), et de poèmes oratoires d'un grand mysticisme, telle 'Eve', vaste fresque poétique en l'honneur des soldats morts au combat. Le poète, un des plus grands, meurt en 1914, la veille de la bataille de la Marne.

""CHARLES PEGUY is the only poet of consequence during the last fifty years in France whose work has failed to arouse the smallest critical interest in this country. Compared with Claudel or Valery, to mention two of his contemporaries, he has simply fallen flat. It almost seems as though the term 'poetry' were out of place, or as though, and this is perhaps nearer the truth, the conception of poetry his work implied placed it outside the pale of contemporary criticism. There seems to be nothing for criticism to get its teeth into. Everything is plain sailing. There is no shell to crack, no secret to explore, no difficulty of language, no impenetrable thought, no interplay of images to be unraveled. In whatever direction the critic looks, whether at the technique, the ideas, the images of the psychological sphere, there is nothing to be done, or at any rate nothing worth doing."" --From the IntroductionCharles Peguy (1873-1914) was a noted French poet, essayist, and editor. His two main philosophies were socialism and nationalism, but by 1908 at the latest, after years of uneasy agnosticism, he had become a believing but nonpracticing Roman Catholic. From that time on, Catholicism strongly influenced his works.

WORK IS IN FRENCH This book is a reproduction of a work published before 1920 and is part of a collection of books reprinted and edited by Hachette Livre, in the framework of a partnership with the National Library of France, providing the opportunity to access old and often rare books from the BnF's heritage funds.

In The Portal of the Mystery of Hope Peguy offers a poem with a profound, moving and comprehensive theology, as incarnated in his celebrated image of the 'little girl Hope.' This volume also contains a biographical chronology, a bibliography, and a host of notes that situate the poem in the context of Peguy's life.