Yale Bulletin and Calendar

March 18, 2005|Volume 33, Number 22

Jacques Guicharnaud

In Memoriam: Jacques Guicharnaud,
French theater scholar and associate
of the Existentialists

Jacques Guicharnaud, an internationally known scholar of French theater who taught at Yale for more than four decades, died in his New Haven home on March 5. He was 80 years old.

Guicharnaud, who was the Benjamin F. Barge Professor Emeritus of French, taught at Yale from 1950 until his retirement in 1997, with the exception of a brief appointment at Harvard University from 1977 to 1979. He specialized in French literature and drama of the 17th, 18th and 20th centuries. He also wrote and directed plays for stage and television, and authored short stories and a novel.

His scholarly books include "Modern French Theatre from Giraudoux to Beckett" (which he co-authored with his wife, June Beckelman Guicharnaud), "Molière, une aventure théâtrale" and "Raymond Queneau." His collection of short stories, "Entre chien et loup," was published in 1946. In 1959 his novel "Santarem," written in collaboration with Yale history professor Rollin Osterweis, was published; the book was widely sold in France.

Guicharnaud also published many articles as well as translations of Tennessee Williams and Ring Lardner. Several of his plays were produced at Yale in the 1950s, during which time he also wrote short plays for children for French television.

A popular teacher at Yale, Guicharnaud was also known among students for captivating audiences with an imitation of James Dean acting the role of Hamlet, and for his discussions of French Existentialism, a student reporter noted in a 1956 Yale Daily News profile of the professor.

Jacques Guicharnaud was born in Paris in 1924 and was a student during the German Occupation in World War II. After the war, he studied at the École Normale Supérieure. He received the Agrégation des Lettres degree in 1948. During his student years in Paris he circulated within a group of intellectuals that included the "existentialistes" Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and others who regularly met at the Café de Flore in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. In this group, Guicharnaud was known as "le jeunet" -- "the young one."

Guicharnaud came to America in 1949 to teach at Bryn Mawr College. He joined the Yale faculty the following year as an instructor in French. In addition to his departmental responsibilities, he served as acting master of Jonathan Edwards College in the spring of 1968 and of Morse College from 1972 to 1973.

For many years, Guicharnaud was actively engaged with the Yale Theater Studies Program.

"Jacques Guicharnaud not only gave many years of devoted service to the executive committee of the Theater Studies Program, but was much sought after by majors and others involved in theater for his courses in French drama -- and not just for his teaching of the 17th century, but at least as much for his insights into the moderns, from Sartre and Camus up to young radicals like Koltes," says Murray Biggs, associate professor (adjunct) of English and theater studies.

"Students were always aware that they were in the presence not only of an eloquent, energetic and entertaining human being, but of someone with personal knowledge of many of the writers he spoke about," Biggs adds.

Charles Porter, professor emeritus of French, says that Guicharnaud "was a popular and caring teacher" whose courses on French theater "were perennial favorites.

"With both colleagues and students, he was always ready with friendly conversation and wonderful anecdotes," Porter adds.

In a 1997 tribute to Guicharnaud on the occasion of his retirement, Christopher Miller, the Frederick Clifford Ford Professor of French and African American Studies who was then chair of the French department, said his colleague "brought both elegance and verve" to the Yale campus.

"In addition to the scholar and teacher, it is Jacques Guicharnaud the impeccable colleague that we will remember," he said. "Always ready with friendly conversation and wonderful anecdotes, Jacques brightened ... our everyday life."

Guicharnaud's wife, June Beckelman Guicharnaud, was an editor, writer and translator. She predeceased him in 1989.

The professor was interred in Grove Street Cemetery. A memorial service will be held later this spring.

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