Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986)
Author of The Second Sex [abridged English translation by H. M. Parshley]
About the Author
Simone de Beauvoir, 1908 - 1986 Simone de Beauvoir was born January 9, 1908 in Paris, France to a respected bourgeois family. Her father was a lawyer, her mother a housewife, and together they raised two daughters to be intelligent, inquisitive individuals. de Beauvoir attended the elementary show more school Cours Desir in 1913, then L'Institute Sainte Nary under the tutelage of Robert Garric, followed by the Institute Catholique in Paris, before finally attending the Sorbonne, where she graduated from in 1929. It was there that she met the man who would become her life long friend and companion, John Paul Sartre, who contributed to her philosophy of life. She is perhaps best know for her novel entitled "The Second Sex", which describes the ideal that women are an indescribable "other", something "made, not born", and a declaration of feminine independence. After graduating from the Sorbonne, de Beauvoir went on to teach Latin at Lycee Victor Duruy, philosophy at a school in Marseilles, and a few other teaching positions before coming to teach at the Sorbonne. During the course of her twelve years of teaching, from 1931 to 1943, de Beauvoir developed the basis for her philosophical thought. She used her formal philosophy background to also comment on feminism and existentialism. Her personal philosophy was that freedom of choice is man's utmost gift of value. Acts of goodness make one more free, acts of evil decrease that selfsame freedom. In 1945, de Beauvoir and Sartre founded and edited Le Temps Modernes, a monthly review of philosophical thought and trends. In 1943, with the money she had earned from teaching, de Beauvoir turned her full attention to writing, producing first "L'Envitee", then "Pyrrhus et Cineas" in 1944. In 1948, she wrote perhaps her most famous philosophical work, "The Ethics of Ambiguity". "The Second Sex", regarded by many as the seminal work in the field of feminism, is her most famous work. Other works include "The Coming of Age", which addresses society's condemnation of old age, the award winning novel "The Mandarins", "A Very Easy Death", about the death of her mother and a four part biography. In "The Woman Destroyed", a collection of two long stories and one short novel, de Beauvoir discusses middle age. One of her last novels was in the form of a diary recording; it told of the slow death of her life-long compatriot, Jean Paul Sartre. On April 14, 1986, Simone de Beauvoir, one of the mothers of feminism, passed away in her home in Paris. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Simone de Beauvoir
Hard Times: Force of Circumstance, Volume II: 1952-1962 (The Autobiography of Simone de Beauvoir) (1963) 139 copies
After The second sex : conversations with Simone De Beauvoir (1983) — some editions; Author — 110 copies
Djamila Boupacha: The story of the torture of a young Algerian girl which shocked liberal French opinion (1962) 28 copies
A History of Sex 7 copies
Lettere al Castoro e ad altre amiche : 1926-1963 — Editor — 4 copies
Lijepe slike & Vrlo blaga smrt 3 copies
De nutteloze monde 2 copies
Fiche de lecture Le Deuxième sexe (tome 1) de Simone de Beauvoir (Analyse littéraire de référence et résumé… (2020) 2 copies
Kadınlığımın Hikayesi 2 copies
J.P. Sartre versus Merleau-Ponty 2 copies
La mesura de l'home 2 copies
Œuvres de Simone de Beauvoir 2 copies
LA CÉRÉMONIE DES ADIEUX 1 copy
Det Þandet kn̜ 1 copy
LES MANDARINES 1 copy
LA FORCE DE L´AGE 1 copy
Monoloog 1 copy
De Beauvoir; or, Second love 1 copy
de Beauvoir, Simone Archive 1 copy
L´AMÉRIQUE AU JOUR LE JOUR 1 copy
Misforståelse i Moskva 1 copy
Femeia sfâșiată - nuvele 1 copy
MIKESHA 1 copy
The Vagabond 1 copy
Modern Classics Prime Of Life (Penguin Modern Classics) by De Beauvoir Simone (1986-09-02) Paperback 1 copy
Kadın 1 copy
Lo spirituale un tempo 1 copy
L' età forte 1 copy
Obras Completas 1 copy
Günümüzde Sağcı Fikirler 1 copy
Samvær med Sartre 1 copy
İkinci Cinsiyet - 1 1 copy
Obras completas, tomo I 1 copy
Plenitud de la vida 1 copy
වාසනාවන්ත මරණයක් 1 copy
L'invite 1 copy
KONUK KIZ 1 copy
Ben Bir Feministim 1 copy
Associated Works
Shoah: An Oral History of the Holocaust: The Complete Text of the Film (1985) — Preface — 592 copies
The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists (2000) — Contributor, some editions — 554 copies
Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology (1984) — Contributor — 200 copies
Jo's Girls: Tomboy Tales of High Adventure, True Grit, and Real Life (1997) — Contributor — 47 copies
* De Provence Lege Artis: Verhalen uit het land van Van Gogh — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Beauvoir, Simone de
- Legal name
- Beauvoir, Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de
- Other names
- Castor, Le (pseudonym)
- Birthdate
- 1908-01-09
- Date of death
- 1986-04-14
- Burial location
- Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, Île-de-France, France
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- France
- Country (for map)
- France
- Birthplace
- Paris, France
- Place of death
- Paris, France
- Places of residence
- Paris, France
- Education
- Institut Catholique (Mathematics)
Institut Sainte-Marie (Literature/Languages)
The Sorbonne, Paris, France (Philosophy) - Occupations
- philosopher
teacher
writer
journalist
playwright
political activist (show all 7)
feminist - Relationships
- Sartre, Jean-Paul (partner)
Algren, Nelson (lover) - Organizations
- Les Temps Modernes
- Awards and honors
- Austrian State Prize for European Literature (1978)
Jerusalem Prize (1975)
Prix Goncourt (1954) - Short biography
- Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris to a devoutly Catholic bourgeois family. She was educated at a convent boarding school and originally wanted to become a nun; however, she lost her faith at age 14. After passing her baccalaureate exams, she studied mathematics at the Institut Catholique and literature and languages at the Institut Sainte-Marie, before entering the Sorbonne to study philosophy. She wrote her thesis on Leibniz. She sat in on courses at the École Normale Supérieure to prepare for the agrégation (postgrad exam) in philosophy, and it was there that she met Jean-Paul Sartre. De Beauvoir became a teacher, intellectual, and well-known writer, beginning with her first novel, She Came to Stay (1943). She also produced philosophical essays, plays, memoirs, travel diaries, and newspaper articles, and served as an editor of the influential literary review Les Temps modernes. She won the Prix Goncourt for her 1954 novel The Mandarins. De Beauvoir became a key figure in the struggle for women's rights in France and worldwide, sparked by her feminist work The Second Sex (1949). With her lifelong companion Sartre, she was a central player in the important philosophical debates of the 20th century.
Members
Discussions
The Second Sex — 2016 group read in Feminist Theory (November 2017)
Second Sex--thoughts? in Feminist Theory (March 2016)
de Beauvoir : The Second Sex in Author Theme Reads (October 2013)
de Beauvoir class and paper in Philosophy and Theory (March 2008)
Reviews
As a fundimental feminist text, this was actually a surprisingly interesting read. I disagreed with so much of it. Mostly I don't support the general idea that "liberty" and "what is natural" is always positive. In my opinion, women by nature of their biological position are always at a slight physical and general disadvantage (based on their need to undergo pregnancy, for example). Creating a system in which this basic problem is removed is an important step, but to call this new system "natural" was frustrating to me. This is not "liberation" in the sense that she means it, but the creation of equality. It is not our social systems that cause inequality, but biology. Our social systems must correct for biological inequity, and blaming them for causing or widening the biological issues is sort of silly. Not to mention that I felt her entire interpretation of the biological differences were silly (men and women put in an equal amount of effort in the creation of a child? really?).… (more)
This is a subtle and evocative study of character and relationships. I read it some 40 years ago as I was improving my French, which forced me to absorb it attentively at a slower rate and probably enjoy it more.
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Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 176
- Also by
- 31
- Members
- 24,773
- Popularity
- #848
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 233
- ISBNs
- 1,005
- Languages
- 31
- Favorited
- 104
"Here were old shoes, gramophone records, silks that were falling to pieces, enamel bowls, chipped crockery, all on the bare muddy ground. Dark-skinned women clothed in brightly-coloured tatters were sitting on newspapers or old rugs, leaning up against the hoardings."
The reason this passage, which would be unremarkable in a normal novel, hit the way it did is that it deals with real, physical, empirical things; objects made of matter. It's about the only time in the book that reality — the thing that great fiction renders immediate and indelible in its infinite richness and variety — intrudes on the vaporous emotional-intellectual existence of these unbearable self-deluding characters.
It's doubly frustrating, because the author manages some acute descriptions of jealousy, the ugliest, least assuageable emotion, and the insidious way it stilettos its victims. But it's less than they deserve. The presence of Sartre and de Beauvoir in Paris in the late 30's was surely an even better reason to flee that part of the world than what was unfolding across the border to the east.… (more)