Jean Giraudoux (1882–1944,) fully Hyppolyte-Jean Giraudoux, was a French novelist, playwright, and essayist. A career diplomat until 1940, he is recognized primarily for his stylized plays based on Greek myths. However, he was a prolific writer of short stories and novels too. He created an impressionistic variety of drama by emphasizing dialogue and style rather than realism.
Born in Bellac, Limousin, Giraudoux had a brilliant academic career at the École Normale Superiéure, Paris. He was admitted to the Légion d’honneur for his service in World War I. After extensive travel, he joined the diplomatic service, becoming head of the French Ministry of Information during World War II.
As a poet and novelist Giraudoux was much influenced by psychoanalytic theories, and pioneered an impressionistic technique in literature, exemplified particularly in Provinciales (1909,) Simon le Pathétique (1918) and contemplations on his war experiences in Retour d’Alsace, août 1914 (1916, ‘Return from Alsace in August 1914.’)
Giraudoux plays are mainly fantasies based on Greek myths and biblical lore, satirically treated as a commentary on modern life. They include La Folle de Chaillot (1945; The Madwoman of Chaillot, 1949,) La Guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu (1935,) and Pour Lucrèce (1953.) The English poet and playwright Christopher Fry translated the last two as Tiger at the Gates (1955) and Duel of Angels (1958.)
Giraudoux also wrote literary criticism, some short stories, and two film scripts.
Laurent LeSage wrote Jean Giraudoux: His Life and Works (1959.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Jean Giraudoux
There is an invisible garment woven around us from our earliest years; it is made of the way we eat, the way we walk, the way we greet people…
—Jean Giraudoux
Topics: Habit
A faithful woman looks to the spring, a good book, perfume, earthquakes, and divine revelation for the experience others find in a lover. They deceive their husbands, so to speak, with the entire world, men excepted.
—Jean Giraudoux
Topics: Women
Sadness flies on the wings of the morning and out of the heart of darkness comes the light.
—Jean Giraudoux
Topics: Morning
A golf course is the epitome of all that is purely transitory in the universe; a space not to dwell in, but to get over as quickly as possible
—Jean Giraudoux
Topics: Golf
Only the mediocre are always at their best.
—Jean Giraudoux
Topics: Mediocrity
Faithful women are all alike, they think only of their fidelity, never of their husbands.
—Jean Giraudoux
I’m not afraid of death. It’s the stake one puts up in order to play the game of life.
—Jean Giraudoux
Topics: Death
When you see a woman who can go nowhere without a staff of admirers, it is not so much because they think she is beautiful, it is because she has told them they are handsome.
—Jean Giraudoux
Topics: Men
A man has only one way of being immortal on earth: he has to forget he is a mortal
—Jean Giraudoux
Water is the one substance from which the earth can conceal nothing; it sucks out its innermost secrets and brings them to our very lips.
—Jean Giraudoux
The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.
—Jean Giraudoux
Topics: Flowers
I tell you, sir, the only safeguard of order and discipline in the modern world is a standardized worker with interchangeable parts. That would solve the entire problem of management.
—Jean Giraudoux
Education makes us more stupid than the brutes. A thousand voices call to us on every hand, but our ears are stopped with wisdom.
—Jean Giraudoux
Topics: Education
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Antoine de Saint-Exupery French Novelist, Aviator
Blaise Cendrars Swiss Poet, Writer
Emile Zola French Novelist
Andre Maurois French Novelist, Biographer
Henri de Montherlant French Essayist, Novelist, Dramatist
Milan Kundera Czech Novelist
Jules Verne French Novelist
Hector Bianciotti French Novelist
Francois Mauriac French Novelist
Jean Cocteau French Poet, Artist