L'Insecte

by Jules Michelet

nous avons suivi l'oiseau dans les libertes du vol, de l'espace et de la lumiere; mais la terre que nous quittions ne nous quittait pas. Les melodies du monde aile ne nous empechaient pas d'entendre le murmure d'un monde infini de tenebres et de silence, qui n'a pas les langues de l'homme, mais s'exprime energiquement par une foule de langues muettes."

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First published January 1, 1857

About the author

His father was a master printer, not very prosperous, and Jules assisted him in the actual work of the press. A place was offered him in the imperial printing office, but his father was able to send him to the famous Collège or Lycée Charlemagne, where he distinguished himself. He passed the university examination in 1821, and was soon appointed to a professorship of history in the Collège Rollin.

Soon after this, in 1824, he married. This was one of the most favourable periods ever for scholars and men of letters in France, and Michelet had powerful patrons in Abel-François Villemain and Victor Cousin, among others. Although he was an ardent politician (having from his childhood embraced republicanism and a peculiar variety of romantic free-thought), he was above all a man of letters and an inquirer into the history of the past. His earliest works were school textbooks. Between 1825 and 1827 he produced diverse sketches, chronological tables, etc, of modern history. His précis of the subject, published in 1827, is a sound and careful book, far better than anything that had appeared before it, and written in a sober yet interesting style. In the same year he was appointed maître de conferences at the École normale supérieure. Four years later, in 1831, the Introduction à l'histoire universelle showed a very different style, exhibiting the idiosyncrasy and literary power of the writer to greater advantage, but also displaying, in the words of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, "the peculiar visionary qualities which made Michelet the most stimulating, but the most untrustworthy (not in facts, which he never consciously falsifies, but in suggestion) of all historians."

Reviews

[Rebecca Gransden · Rating 5 out of 5]

All Creatures Small

[时间的玫瑰 · Rating 3 out of 5]

hmm观察中融入自己的心情没什么不好，只是如果在对昆虫的描述当中加入了太多人类的情感，昆虫的爱情，昆虫的回忆什么的，会让我觉得观察者的重心其实不在昆虫或是自然身上，而在自己蓬勃而出的情感上。虽然各人有各好，比起诗人对于小虫子的瞎抒情，我想昆虫学家讲自己小时候一手抓一只甲虫，结果看见第三只舍不得放弃把手里抓的一只放到嘴里结果舌头烧了半个月这样的故事更能让我觉得自然和研究者的可爱吧。

[Gabriele Di Sotto · Rating 5 out of 5]

"L'insetto nasce per se stesso, si muove, va, viene, avanza, ritorna, si gira, se vuole cambia idea, direzione, a seconda dei bisogni, appetiti, capricci. è sufficiente a se stesso, prevede, provvede, si difende, fa fronte agli imprevisti.(...) Nasce avido, capace di assorbire. E proprio l'assorbimento è il servizio che la natura si aspetta da lui."