Victor Bérard , born with Morez in 1864, died in 1931, hellenist, diplomat and politician French, is known for its beautiful translation of the Odyssée of Homère, like for its attempts at reconstitution of the voyages of Ulysses.

Biography

Victor Bérard was pupil with the National university (1884-1887), then became member of the French École of Athens (1887-1890). For this reason, it made many stays in the Ottoman Empire and worried about the condition of the Armenians and the minorities in this State directed by the sultan Abdülhamid II. Its thesis of doctorate related to the worships of Arcadie and their genesis. He taught the geography of 1896 to 1914 at the University of navy and the practical École of the high studies.

By its verse translation of the Odyssey , it contributed a significant share to the rebirth of the Philologie to France within the Association Guillaume Budé. Inspired by the exceptional success of Heinrich Schliemann in Archeology, he undertook to find, by a reconstitution of the old conditions of navigation, the shores of the Mediterranean attended by Ulysses, the hero of Homère. He used for that his own boat, while following the indications given in the Odyssey.

Senator of the the Jura of 1920 to 1931, he was president of the commission of the foreign affairs of the Senate until 1929.

Criticisms of its research on the Odyssey

If research, the assumptions and the ideas of Bérard on the Odyssey are always stimulative and plausible, its demonstrations inevitably made the object of criticism since decades taking into account the knowledge acquired since on the antiquated Greece, highlighting the Anachronisme methods of the translator of the Odyssey. Thus, Bérard used its own ship to reconstitute the tour of Ulysses, an obviously modern ship and using unknown techniques of the Greeks of Antiquity. Moreover, when he seeks to locate details as precise as the cave of Calypso, Bérard leaves the postulate that Homère did not invent anything, and described only real places, debatable point of view.

Works

Tests

• Victor Bérard and Martin Melkonian - the Policy of the Sultan - massacres of the Armenians: 1894-1896 (1897), coll Steps of Time
• Victor Bérard - France of Africa. Towards the Sahara (1911), in the Review of Paris
• Victor Bérard - a lie of German science. The “Prolégomènes with Homère” of Frederic-Auguste Wolf (1917, 2nd edition), ED. Hatchet and Co, Paris, In-12 stitched, 288 p.
• Victor Bérard, Phéniciens and the Odyssey (1902-1903, rééd. 1927), ED. Armand Colin, Paris
• Victor Bérard, navigations of Ulysses in 4 vol.: I. Ithaque and Greece of the Achaens; II. Pénélope and barons of the islands; III. Calypso and sea of Atlantis; IV. Nausicaa and the return of Ulysses (1927-1929, rééd. 1971), ED. Armand Colin, Paris
• Victor Bérard - the Odyssey of Homère. Study and analyzes. (1931) Paris MELLOTEE, Editor
• Victor Bérard, In the wake of Ulysses, album odysséen with photographs of Frederic Boissonnas (1933, posth.), ED. Armand Colin, Paris

Translations of works of Homère

Homère, “Odyssey”, transl. of Victor Bérard (1924), ED, Beautiful letters, Paris

Random links:

Canton of Peyrehorade | The Community of communes of the area of Pouancé-Combrée | Santa Cecília (Santa Catarina) | June 1701 | Carlos Santa