Croise, Maurice

Maurice Croise was born in 1846 in the family of a teacher at the Paris . From childhood, his father paid special attention to the education of Maurice and his older brother Alfred , daily reading Greek and Latin classical authors with them every hour ^[4] . In 1865, at the end of the lyceum of Louis the Great ^[5] , Maurice entered the Paris Higher Normal School . There, his teachers were Jules Lachelier , Gaston Boissier and Jules Girard - the last Hellenist known for his time, apparently, played a key role in the choice of the same scientific specialization by young Croiset ^[6] .

In 1868, Croisse graduated from the Higher Normal School and began working as a school teacher in Moulins, and then (after the Franco-Prussian war , during which he participated in the defense of Paris) in Montpellier. In 1873, Croisse married the daughter of the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Montpellier . At this time, he also worked on his doctoral dissertation, which he defended in 1876 on the topic “Moral ideas in political speeches of Demosthenes ”, in the spring of the same year he received a position as a teacher of Greek language and literature at the University of Montpellier ^[7] . Croise worked at the University of Montpellier for 15 years, since 1877 - with the rank of professor ^[8] .

At the University of Montpellier, Croiset continued his research in the field of Greek literature, and in 1882 his work on the biography and creative heritage of Lucian ^[9] was published. The following year, Maurice and Alfred Croiset began work on the fundamental “History of Greek Literature,” conceived as a five-volume book — each of the brothers undertook work on two and a half volumes. The writing of the History of Greek Literature lasted 15 years, but, unlike the earlier work of the same name by Otfried Müller , it was still possible to finish. Maurice Croise was the sole author of the 1st and 3rd volumes, published in 1887 and 1891, respectively; The first volume was devoted to Homer , cyclical poetry and Hesiod , the third to the Greek theater of the Attic period. The third volume, without falling to the level of a simple catalog, revealed the nuances of the development of ancient Greek theater and gave the reader its genre analysis. As the Hellenist Paul Mason later pointed out, the two pages of the History devoted to the work of Menander turned out to be more accurate than all the previous literature on this topic, and the correctness of Croisette was confirmed by the newly opened texts of this Greek playwright. The fifth volume, two-thirds devoted to Greek literature of the Roman Empire period, was published in 1899, after the second edition of the first four volumes appeared ^[10] . In parallel with the work on the encyclopedic “History”, Croisse also published separate studies on narrower topics, among which the book “ Aristophanes and the Athenian Parties” became the most notable ^[11] .

The success that accompanied the first volumes of the History of Greek Literature took Moris Croiset's academic career to a new level. In 1891, he was invited to teach at the Higher Normal School, and two years later he occupied the professorship of the Greek language and literature at the College de France . He taught at this university for 37 years, in 1911 replacing Emil Levasser as his administrator (chairman of the academic council) and holding it until his retirement in 1929. In 1903, 17 years after Alfred, Maurice Croise was elected a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Fine Literature , and in 1916 he took over as its president. He also twice headed the Association for the Development of Research of Ancient Greece. In the last years of his life, Croiset, widowed in 1905, devoted his time to working in the Guillaume Budet Association founded by him in 1917 and the publishing house, which specialized in the publication of ancient authors. In 1932, the last major work by Croisse, “Ancient Greek Civilization,” was published, and his work on Plato remained incomplete ^[12] .

• Des idées morales dans l'éloquence politique de Demosthène (1874)
• Essai sur la vie et les œuvres de Lucien (1882)
• Histoire de la litterature grecque (1887-1899)
• Aristophane et les partis politiques à Athènes (1906)
• Eschyle, études sur l'invention dramatique dans son théâtre (1928)
• La Civilization de la Grèce antique (1932)

• Abel Lefranc. Funérailles de M. Maurice Croiset, membre de l'Académie // Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. - 1935. - Vol. 79, No. 4. - P. 518-526.
• Faral, Edmond. Notice sur la vie et les travaux de M. Maurice Croiset // Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. - 1944. - Vol. 88, No. 1. - P. 78-101.
• Croiset, Maurice // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.