Présentation

Jean Starobinski was born in Geneva in 1920. He taught French literature at the universities of Johns Hopkins, Basel and Geneva, where he also gave lectures about the history of ideas and history of medicine. His books have enriched the views of several major works. He has also worked extensively on the contemporary poetic creation, as well as on the issues of interpretation. His essays on the art of the seventeenth century have become classics. His experience as a physician and psychiatrist led him to study the history of melancholy (including Trois Fureurs, 1974). In 2010, he entrusted his archives, consisting of over 40,000 books, at the Archives of the Swiss National Library. In 2012, he published L’Encre de la Mélancolie (Paris, Seuil), Accuser et séduire (Paris, Gallimard) and Diderot, un diable de ramage (Paris, Gallimard).