Alexandre Vinet

Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet (June 17, 1797 – May 4, 1847), was a Swiss critic and theologian.

Alexandre Vinet
Vinet 1838

Literary critic

He was born near Lausanne in Switzerland. Educated for the Protestant ministry, he was ordained in 1819, when already teacher of the French language and literature in the gymnasium at Basel; and throughout his life he was as much a critic as a theologian. His literary criticism brought him into contact with Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, for whom he obtained an invitation to lecture at Lausanne, which led to his famous work on Port-Royal.[1]

Vinet's Chrestomathie française (1829), his Études sur la littérature française au XIXme siècle (1840–51), and his Histoire de la littérature française au XVIIIme siècle, together with his Études sur Pascal, Études sur les moralistes aux XVIme et XVIIme siècles, Histoire de la prédication parmi les Réformés de France and other related works, gave evidence of a wide knowledge of literature, acute literary judgment and a distinguished faculty of appreciation. He adjusted his theories to the work under review, and condemned nothing as long as it met his literary standards.[1]

Theologian

As a theologian Vinet gave a fresh impulse to Protestant theology, especially in French-speaking lands, but also in England and elsewhere. Lord Acton classed him with Richard Rothe. His philosophy relied strongly on conscience, defined as that by which man stands in direct personal relation with God as moral sovereign, and the seat of a moral individuality which nothing can rightly infringe. He advocated complete freedom of religious belief, and to this end the formal separation of church and state in Mémoire en faveur de la liberté des cultes (1826), Essai sur la conscience (1829), Essai sur la manifestation des convictions religieuses (1842).[1]

Accordingly, when in 1845 the civil power in the canton of Vaud interfered with the church's autonomy, he led a secession which took the name of L'Église libre. But already from 1831, when he published his Discours sur quelques sujets religieux (Nouveaux discours, 1841), he had begun to exert a liberalizing and deepening influence on religious thought far beyond his own canton, by bringing traditional doctrine to the test of a living personal experience (see also the philosophy of Gaston Frommel). In this he resembled Frederick William Robertson, as also in the change which he introduced into pulpit style and in the permanence of his influence.[1]

Vinet died at Clarens (Vaud). A considerable part of his work was not printed till after his death.[1]

gollark: There's only, what, one sell shop around, and there are large differences between buy/sell prices.
gollark: This also has the problem that you need the same production on each end anyway.
gollark: Also, with actual mod support it might be somewhat more immersive and might be more automatable.
gollark: e. g. computers with data, slightly damaged tools, enchanted stuff
gollark: Or at least can't be easily transferred.

References
  1.  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bartlet, James Vernon (1911). "Vinet, Alexandre Rodolphe". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 97. This work in turn cites:
    • L. M. Lane, Life and Writings of A. Vinet (1890)
    • L. Molines, Étude sur Alexandre Vinet (Paris, 1890)
    • Eugène Rambert biography (1875; he re-edited the Chrestomathie in 1876)
    • V. Rivet, Études sur les origines de la pensée religieuse de Vinet (Paris, 1896)
    • V. Rossel, Histoire de la littérature française hors de France (Lausanne, 1895)
    • A. Schumann, Alex. Vinet (1907)

Further reading
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