Jacques Barzun Obituary

Jacques Barzun, who passed away at the age of 104, was a scholar renowned for his impressive and extensive knowledge in literature, philosophy, history, and music. Born in France, he was based at Columbia University in New York for over four decades, primarily in the history department where he taught with great dedication.

Barzun authored various books and articles beginning in 1932 that aimed to help students, researchers, and writers. He found no issue in direct exploration of the grandest of subjects and in actively teaching pragmatic writing skills such as avoiding clichés and jargon while offering guidance on the use of quotations and footnotes. His writing style was clear and scholarly but never hostile, often leavened by his seemingly unceasing anecdote cache.

In his book From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life (2000), Barzun presents his ideas comprehensively in over 800 pages. He adopts a conversational tone and shares biographies of specific people while narrating the cultural history of Europe from the Reformation to the late 20th century. Barzun identifies key themes such as self-awareness, secularism, individualism, abstraction, primitivism, emancipation, and scientism that provide the continuity of the subject matter. Barzun introduces a hypothesis that champions a linkage between political egalitarianism and cultural decline.

His landmark Berlioz and the Romantic Century two-volume work published in 1950 and revised in 1969, remains famous amongst scholars. In it, Barzun discusses Berlioz’s ill-fated marriage to Harriet Smithson, explaining that Berlioz was "so constituted that his tenacity would not let him yield anything on which he had once set his heart." Barzun maintained his interest in Berlioz, utilizing new inspiration gained from discovered letters. He incorporated one such letter in his book authored with Henry Graff, The Modern Researcher (1957), which is now in its sixth edition. The evidence discovered in these letters led Barzun to use them as vital lessons for budding researchers.

Barzun welcomed and absorbed American culture into his writing effectively. The House of Intellect (1959) humorously pokes fun and rebukes American culture. He points towards America as the starting point for a conversation that includes contradictions but is stifled by the democratic manners. As such, conversation is confined to statements of fact or exchange of benign opinions, excluding politics and religion from the discourse.

Born in Créteil, southeastern Paris, he received his education at the Lycée Janson de Sailly, Paris. He remembers famous artistic figures visiting his parents, such as Guillaume Apollinaire, Jean Cocteau, and Marie Laurencin. His mother and he emigrated to the US in 1920 to escape the upheaval resulting from the first world war. He attended Columbia as a graduate student, assisting Carlton Hayes on his book A Political and Cultural History of Modern Europe. He was committed to the discipline of cultural history from this point forward.

Barzun was awarded his doctorate in 1932 for his thesis on the Enlightenment philosopher Montesquieu. This earned him his first book, The French Race, which he reworked as Race: A Study in Modern Superstition (1937). Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage followed four years later, where he placed these three figures in the social, intellectual context of their time.

Jacques Barzun, a renowned cultural historian and educator, was born on November 30th 1907. Sadly, his first marriage to Lucretia Mueller came to an end in 1936, resulting in a divorce. He found love again and got married to Mariana Lowell in the same year and they stayed together until her demise in 1979. A year later, Jacques tied the knot for the third time with Marguerite Davenport, who fortunately survives him. He was blessed with three children, James, Roger, and Isabel from his second marriage. On October 25th 2012, he passed away but his unparalleled legacy still remains.