Chavagnes International College“Charles Péguy, the French Catholic Revival and a little girl called Hope”, Ferdi McDermott.
1h 5min2021 FEB 15
詳細信息
Following calls from recent popes to a rediscovery of the theological virtue of hope, this paper examines a poem dealing specifically with that subject, by Charles Péguy, a French poet who died in 1914 in the early fighting of the First World War. He is a key figure of what has been called the French Catholic revival. His dramatic monologue takes the form of a catechism lesson lesson addressed to the young St. Joan of Arc, in which Hope is portrayed as a little girl. Rooted in a rediscovery of the “real” and under the influence of the philosopher Bergson, Péguy’s message seems to be that a childlike Hope could be the key to a renewal of Faith and Love, and perhaps to a re-energizing of the Christian message. Péguy wrote his poem at a time when France was deeply traumatized by the Franco-Prussian war, the Dreyfus scandal and the anti-clerical purge of the early 20th century. It was a society that had lost is bearings. Many themes of his day are strangely current in our own. This talk was delivered (online) as part of the Chavagnes 2020 Summer conference: Faith and the fin de Siècle.