Montherlant, Henri de [key], 1896–1972, French writer. His novels are decadent and egotistical and glorify force and masculinity. Montherlant fought in World War I and was later an athlete and a bullfighter. Among his novels are Les Bestiaires (1926, tr. The Bullfighters, 1927), Les Célibataires (1934, tr. The Bachelors, 1960), the series of four novels Les Jeunes Filles (1936–40; tr. Pity for Women, 1937, Costals & the Hippogriff, 1940, The Girls, 1968), Chaos et la nuit (1963, tr. Chaos and Night, 1964), and Les Garçons (1969). Montherlant's plays, all very successful, include Le Maître de Santiago (1947, tr. 1951), Port-Royal (1954), Don Juan (1958), Le Cardinal d'Espagne (1960), and La Guerre civile (1965, tr. 1967 in Theatre of War).
See biography by L. Becker (1970); study by R. J. Golsan (1988).
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