“Jacques Sternberg: the ABCs of Contempt”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18778/1505-9065.15.17Keywords:
Jacques Sternberg, Alphabet, Belgium, contempt, dictionary, humour, jew, nazism, punsAbstract
Jacques Sternberg (1923-2006) was a singular figure of the Parisian literary life of the 60s and 70s, but today his name is mostly associated with Alain Resnais and Roland Topor. In 1973, he published a Dictionnaire du mépris, in which the humorist expressed his detestation of mankind in general and of French society under president Pompidou in particular. It was expanded in 1985 under the title Dictionnaire des idées revues. Neither book aims to be funny. Their main interest lies in their titles and in their form. Following in the footsteps of Voltaire, Gustave Flaubert and Ambrose Bierce, Sternberg establishes a strong connection between satire and the dictionary form; but his all-encompassing contempt – an essential ingredient of « true humour » – is of a different brand. He pretends to dislike not only people but literature. The key to this radicality is perhaps to be found in the young man’s experience of the horrors of WW2 and of the camps where his father lost his life
Downloads
References
Bierce, Ambrose, The Devil’s Dictionary, New York et Washington, Neale Publishing, 1911
Google Scholar
Desfontaines, Pierre François Guyot, Dictionnaire néologique à l’usage des beaux esprits du siècle, s. l., 1726
Google Scholar
Desproges, Pierre, Dictionnaire superflu à l’usage de l’élite et des bien nantis, Paris, Seuil, 1985
Google Scholar
Diderot, Denis, Encyclopédie, Paris, Samuel Fauche, 1751
Google Scholar
Flaubert, Gustave, Dictionnaire des idées reçues. Catalogue des opinions chics, posthume, Paris, Louis Conard, 1913
Google Scholar
Humour poétique, numéro spécial de la revue La Nef, Paris, Librairie Jules Tallandier, décembre 1950-janvier 1951
Google Scholar
Olivier, Jacques, Alphabet de l’imperfection et malice des femmes, Paris, 1617
Google Scholar
Somaize, Antoine Baudeau de, Le Grand Dictionnaire des prétieuses, historique, poétique, géographique, cosmographique, chronologique et armoirique, Paris, Ribou, 1661
Google Scholar
Sternberg, Jacques, Dictionnaire du mépris, Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1973
Google Scholar
Sternberg, Jacques, Contes glacés, Verviers, André Gérard Marabout, 1974
Google Scholar
Sternberg, Jacques (éd.), MEPRIS, la revue qui n’a strictement rien à vendre, ou à louer, 3 numéros, octobre et décembre 1973, février 1974, Yverdon, Kesserling éditeur
Google Scholar
Sternberg, Jacques, Dictionnaire des idées revues, illustré par Roland Topor, Paris, Denoël, 1985
Google Scholar
Sternberg, Jacques, préface au Dictionnaire du diable d’Ambrose Bierce, Nouvelles éditions Oswald, 1987
Google Scholar
Voltaire, Conversation de M. l’intendant des menus en exercices avec M. l’abbé Grizel (1761), in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, éd. Louis Moland, Paris
Google Scholar
Voltaire, Correspondance, in OC, éd. Moland, Garnier, t. 33-50, 1880-1882
Google Scholar
Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique portatif, Genève, Gabriel Grasset, 1764
Google Scholar
Voltaire, La Raison par alphabet, Genève, Gabriel Cramer, 1769
Google Scholar
Voltaire, Questions sur l’Encyclopédie, par des amateurs, 9 vol., Genève, Cramer, 1770-1771
Google Scholar
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
