Denis Saurat

Did You Know?

• Saurat's views on connections between the poetry of Edmund Spenser and John Milton and the occult, represented by the Kabbalah, anticipated later studies such as those of Frances Yates.
• During World War II, he clashed with Charles de Gaulle over the autonomy of the French Institute of London and de Gaulle's technocratic ambitions for it.
• In his last years, he composed poems in Occitan, his mother tongue.

Biography

Denis Saurat, born in Toulouse and passing away in Nice, spent his most productive years in London. When World War I began, he was teaching French as a reader at Glasgow University. After earning a doctorate from the University of Bordeaux and becoming a lauréat des concours d'agrégation in 1919, he joined King’s College London’s French department in 1920, rising to professor in 1926. He also ran the French Institute of London in South Kensington for many years.

During World War II, his role there and his determination to keep the Institut independent caused a serious conflict with Charles de Gaulle, involving both Free French politics and Saurat’s opposition to de Gaulle’s technocratic plans for the institute. Facing official orders to relocate to Bristol, Saurat received backing from Vere Ponsonby, the 9th Earl of Bessborough. He chose instead to resign from the Institut, retire from the university, and move to Nice.

In his final years, he was actively involved with PEN International, wrote poems in his native Occitan, and produced bestselling speculative nonfiction about Atlantis and Earth’s early history. The phrase “Scottish Renaissance” gained critical attention thanks to Saurat’s April 1924 article “Le Groupe de la Renaissance Écossaise” in the Revue Anglo-Américaine.