author
Henri Massis
1886–1970
A sharp, influential voice in French letters, he wrote about literature, politics, and culture with a strongly traditionalist outlook. Best known as an essayist and critic, he also became a member of the Académie française late in life.
1 Audiobook
La vie d'Ernest Psichari
by Henri Massis
About the author
Born in Paris on March 21, 1886, Henri Massis became known as a French essayist, literary critic, and literary historian. He studied at the Lycée Condorcet and later at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France, where his education placed him close to some of the major intellectual currents of his time.
Early in his career, he wrote polemical works with Alfred de Tarde under the shared pen name Agathon. Over time he built a reputation for essays on literature and culture, and he founded or helped lead influential reviews including Roseau d'Or and La Revue universelle. His work was closely associated with conservative and Catholic intellectual life in twentieth-century France.
Massis remained an active public writer for decades, publishing books on literary and political themes and arguing for what he saw as the defense of Western civilization. In 1960 he was elected to the Académie française, a sign of his standing in French literary life. He died in Paris on April 16, 1970.