Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Adolphe Tainewas a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate with him. Taine is particularly remembered for his three-pronged approach to the contextual study of a work of art, based on the aspects of what he called "race, milieu, and moment"...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth21 April 1828
CountryFrance
Hippolyte Taine quotes about
His tongue is by turns a sponge, a brush, a comb. He cleans himself, he smooths himself, he knows what is proper.
There are four varieties in society — the lovers, the ambitious, observers, and fools. The fools are the happiest.
We study ourselves three weeks, we love each other three months, we squabble three years, we tolerate each other thirty years, and then the children start all over again.
Amid this vast and overwhelming space and in these boundless solar archipelagoes, how small is our own sphere, and the earth, what a grain of sand!
I've met many thinkers and many cats, but the wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.