ÉCLAIRCISSEMENTS SUR LES SIX PREMIÈRES BIOGRAPHIES DE HOBBES

Six biographies de Hobbes ont été écrites, et cinq d'entre elles imprimées, durant sa vie ou peu après sa mort. Cet article étudie les circonstances dans lesquelles ces textes prirent naissance. Il s'efforce de montrer : 1. que l'autobiographie de Hobbes en prose est faite de deux parties, qui appartiennent à deux moments distincts de sa longue vie ; 2. qu'en publiant le volume de 1681 qui contient son Auctarium, Blackburne, selon les propres paroles de John Aubrey, coupait à celui-ci l'herbe sous le pied. Six biographies of Hobbes were written, and five of them printed, during his lifetime or shortly after his death. This article enquires into the circumstances under which these texts came into existence. It tries to show : 1. that Hobbes's prose autobiography is made of two parts, belonging to two different moments of his long life ; 2. that in publishing the volume of 1681 which contains his Auctarium, Blackburne was, in the author of the Lives'oww words, cutting the grass under John Aubrey's feet.