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French Writers and their Society 1715–1800 PDF

263 Pages·1982·27.107 MB·English
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French Writers and their Society 1715-1800 By the same author Voltaire Pierre Bayle and Voltaire Voltaire: A Biography Editions of Marivaux, Les Fausses Corifidences Voltaire, Zadig and Other Tales Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence (with translation) French Writers and their Society 1715-1800 Haydn Mason ToA.M.R. © Haydn Mason 1982 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1982 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1982 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-1-349-04662-1 ISBN 978-1-349-04660-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-04660-7 Contents Introduction 1 PART I GENERAL MATTERS 1 Politics and Society 9 2 The Writer and His Audience 36 PART II CASE HISTORIES 1 Aristocratic Reform Under the Regency: Montesquieu (1689-1755) 59 Lettres persanes ( 17 21) 2 ThelndividualistApproach: Marivaux (1688-1763) 74 Lettres sur les habitants de Paris ( 17 1 7-18) La Double Inconstance ( 17 23) Le Prince travesti ( 17 24) L 'lie des esclaves ( 1725) L'lle de la raison (1727) 3 Money and the Establishment: Prevost (1697-1763) 90 Manon Lescaut ( 1731) 4 Luxury in a Secular Civilisation: Voltaire ( 1694-1778) 105 Lettres philosophiques ( 17 3 4) Le Mondain ( 1736) Difense du Mondain (1737) 5 The Rise ofTechnology: L'Enryclopidie (1751-72) 112 The Planches 6 Genevan Theatre and the Middle Classes: Jean- Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) 128 a Lettre d'Alembert ( 17 5 8) 7 Commerce, Class-distinction and Realist Drama: Sedaine (1719-97) 146 Le Philosophe sans le savoir ( 1765) Vl Contents 8 Crime and Punishment: Voltaire ( 1694-1 778) 168 Commentaire sur le livre des de/its et des peines (1766) 9 The Development of Biological Science: Diderot (1713-84) 182 Le Reve de d'Alembert (1769) 10 ARedHerring?Laclos(1741-1803) 197 Les Liaisons dangereuses ( 1782) 11 Universal Education: Condorcet ( 1743-94) 209 Rapport sur /'instruction publique ( 1792) 12 Exiles from the Revolution: Senac de Meilhan (1734-1803) 220 L'Emigre (1797) 13 Popular Reading Tastes 232 14 TheWayForward:MadamedeStaei(1766-1817) 239 De Ia litterature ( 1800) Select Bibliography 246 Index 251 Introduction The basic assumption underlying this book is very simple: litera ture does not arise in a vacuum. Like every other human activity, it is 'in situation', however much it may ultimately transcend that condition in its final form. There is of course nothing new about this approach, and if it needs justification afresh these days, the reason lies to some extent in the harm which has been done by abusing it so often in the past. Taine's brilliant but excessive insistence upon 'race', 'milieu' and 'moment' in the for mation of the writer has done as much damage to literary criti cism as the Marxist orthodoxy that the class struggle will illuminate all. It is hardly surprising that many a critic, horrified by explanations that explain nothing or, worse, deform the liter ary work completely, has reacted by asserting that the text is supreme and all extrinsic considerations irrelevant. But this approach, while not without validity on particular occasions, cannot serve as a complete answer. It makes for an increasingly esoteric cult, a purism which must remain wholly theoretical and sterile on many of the larger questions we may ask ourselves about literature. To study, say, the collocation of images in Candide or Le Neveu de Rameau may not require much reference outside the works themselves (though the critic might be unwise in choosing to ignore whether Voltaire or Diderot use similar imagery in, for example, their correspondence of the same period). But to attempt any discussion on the general signifi cance of these works would be foolish if one is not prepared to consult all the information available-which involves one in Vol taire's commercial activities in shipping, Diderot's other com ments on the role of genius in society, and much else besides. There will still be an enigma at the end of it all, great literature being by its nature ambiguous and susceptible of diverse in terpretations; but at least one may delimit the area of that ambi guity, confirm or deny specific details of fact and circumstances, 2 French Writers and their Society and then arrive at the rich task of critical evaluation with much spare ballast jettisoned. Though his concern was somewhat dif ferent from ours, Daniel Mornet summed up the situation with his usual lucidity and commonsense: 'L'histoire complete de Ia pensee et du gout permet de tracer avec beaucoup plus de pre a cision le cercle l'interieur duquel il faut seulement chercher le secret de son genie' .1 Purely textual literary criticism, when it poses as the whole discipline rather than a part of it, contributes to that '"balkanization" of knowledge and culture' against which Malcolm Bradbury has registered protest. As he rightly argues, literature 'coheres, structures and illuminates' many of society's most profound meanings.2 Literature and sociology have much to gain from one another, and this interdisciplinary study is but the new form, in a more rigorous mode, of an old subject. What then are the questions we must ask in such a study of literature and society? First of all, we must delineate the writer's social context. We must define his background, education, train ing, occupation; we must find out how he was placed financially and how dependent he was on the social establishment ofhis day. Such questions broaden out into fundamental considerations of the class structure, the educational institutions, the economics of patronage (which implicitly, and often in the eighteenth century explicitly, involves censorship). How are books produced and distributed and what do they cost? Who pays? What is the status of the writing profession? How does all this affect the social affili ation and ideology of the writer? A second series of questions, closely related to the first, con cerns the writer's audience. As Sartre put it in his famous essay Qu'est-ce que la littirature?: 'Pour qui ecrit-on?' The extent and nature of the reading public are closely bound up with education and literacy, particularly in an earlier period like the eighteenth century. Who constitutes the cultured class? Is it a unity or frag mented into subgroups? What are the means available by which authors reach their readers, either directly or by general pub licity of their works and ideas? Here we need to consider the various roles of eighteenth-century media: not only books but theatre, cafes, salons, newspapers and periodicals. The question of censorship is of course most pertinent here, the relationship between works that were officially (or unofficially) approved and those that circulated being a highly complex one. The signifi- Introduction 3 cance of cares and salons is harder still to establish, their contri bution being essentially an oral and ephemeral one; but it must not be ignored. All this needs to be related to the general manifestations of the time: the growth of scientific and technological change, the strug gles between the monarchy and the Parlements, the foundering of the State finances, the inequities of taxation, the overwhelmingly rural nature of France in the eighteenth century, and so on. Finally, and not least, we must consider the social content, purpose and influence of these literary documents. How do works of literature order and present the social scene, and to what effect? Here it needs to be said with the greatest firmness that the creative role of literature must never be forgotten. To study literature as no more than a response to society is already to throw in one's lot with sociology at the expense of criticism. The present writer, however imperfectly, will hope to convey some thing of his conviction that literature, as one of man's richest pur suits, can never be reducible to other phenomena or totally explained by reference to them. The task of studying literature in a social context would for him be meaningless if that literature were lacking in its own unique qualities. The nature of this study carries with it a certain predisposition to examine society first and literature second; it is hoped that the result has not been to demote the latter. In line with these views, the literature that mainly figures here is serious and complex in thought and form. This emphasis is however not exclusive. A general study that omitted all reference to more popular literature in this period would be misleading, and so it is included, albeit briefly. The tra ditional mass literature and the new mass journalism are them selves fascinating topics of enquiry, and they would have occupied a more important position if this book were concerned with cultural sociology rather than literature in its social setting. The foregoing questions would be formidable enough if we were dealing with a static model. In fact, France between 1715 and 1800 was in a process of ceaseless and ever greater change and turmoil; and the last decade is one of revolution and in numerable obscure confusions to which a whole library of books has been exclusively devoted. Not only must the basic points be raised, they must be raised repeatedly at each important land mark. The task ideally requires the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Sisyphus.

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