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Conference : National literary fields and European space

The national formalizations of the historical novel : an empirical point of view on Weltliteratur

Author/s : Xavier LANDRIN

The disciplinary foundations of “world literature” or of “comparative literature” usually find their support, in particular in Anglo-Saxon research, in the historiography and the European literary critic of the 19th century. They define the Goethean vision of the Weltliteratur as one of the principal testimonies on the advent of a “world literature” and like a definition repertoire of a “universal literature” that would refer as well to texts avoiding the most immediate or fleeting success, to texts announcing literary reforms, or to works valorized by the tradition no matter what their national bond is. These re-readings of the origins of “world literature” find their sources in different interpretations of the Conversations de Goethe avec Eckermann (1836-1848) and give, at the price of many simplifications, a substantial definition of literary universality. This definition reduces to a univocal hermeneutic scheme a set of coexistent or concurrent points of view on the Weltliteratur that the Conversations have integrated by giving them a more general meaning. The Conversations introduce indeed a break in the collective work of theorizing a new German culture, first initiated by Lessing (Dramaturgie de Hambourg, 1767-1769) and Herder (Chants populaires, 1778-1779, Idées sur la philosophie de l’histoire de l’humanité, 1784-1791). As they appear in the productions of Lessing, Herder and Klopstock (La République allemande des savants, 1774), the critique of the domination of French universalism and the defense of a new universalism founded on the valorization of national popular traditions, are formulated by Goethe as a legacy to overcome: their polemical work is at the same time presented as the result of particular political conditions (religious division and national fragmentation of Germany), and as a stage of debates on national culture redefined by the Schiller’s (Qu’est-ce que l’histoire universelle et pourquoi l’étudie-t-on ?, 1789) and Schlegel’s (Histoire de la littérature ancienne et moderne, 1812) theoretical undertaking. The works of the Schlegel brothers, of Schiller and Goethe represent a set of viewpoints apparently homogeneous that follow the publications of popular writings and philosophical essays on national manners — as the example of the Macpherson’s collections (Fragments de poésie ancienne, Poèmes d’Ossian, 1760) or the satiric letters by Goldsmith (Le Cosmopolite, 1762) illustrating the diversified roots of national cultures. Nonetheless, these works can be analyzed as opposed points of view on the new German universalism and, as soon as 1810, on the classification of arts and literature (classicism/romanticism). The internal reading of Conversations doesn’t teach us more about the genesis of the Goethean conception of Weltliteratur. The study of the transformation of Goethe‘s relation to French literature allows access to the definition of the literary universality. After having integrated the herderian perspective and the rediscovery of the Shakespearian theater, Goethe considers the French literary production of the Restoration (1814-1830) as one of the principal places of renewal of the liberal critique of classicism. Against the current of the cultural patriotism of Fichte, Ernst Moritz Arndt or Karl Theodor Körner, exacerbated by Napoleon conquests, this attempt to valorize French modern literature can be explained in particular by the recognition in France of a new definition of literary universalism, from now on perceived as a set of original and national productions participating in the same reform of classical literature. The articles in Kunst und Altertum (1816-1832) and certain commentaries from the Conversations give a definition of the Weltliteratur very much dependent on cultural references (national or foreign) of the French initiators of the new aesthetic of romanticism. Goethe then revealed their names (especially Guizot, Villemain, Cousin and Salvandy) and their journals (Le Globe and La Revue française) to the attention of the German public. Amongst the works and the literary genres debated in Europe after the Congress of Vienna to which Goethe devotes his attention, the historical novels, in particular the texts of Walter Scott, are the most often cited and commented, especially because they represent at the same time the most complete attempt to define the concept of nation and the most controversial operation of renewal the traditional literary forms and contents. The analysis of the national formalization of the historical novel during the French Restoration enable empirical consideration of the uses of innovative literary works of which the Conversations are echoed. The conditions of importing and the national definition of the historical novel, especially Scott’s Waverley Novels and Manzoni’s Promessi Sposi, depend on the specificities of the national political field. The symbolic productions (philosophic, historiographical, and literary) refer in this period to the struggles of elite factions (Old Regime nobility and noble emigration, middle class fractions and Bonapartist elites) in search of positions in a new field of political opportunities. From the viewpoint of the actors engaged in the reform of the traditions of the Old Regime (court historiography, rules of classical literary composition, etc.), the texts of Manzoni and Scott allow a new theorization of the narrative and of the history. On the one hand, the promotion of a neutral narrative form, at the same time fictional and historical, allows criticism of the arbitrary of court historiography. On the other, the extension of the historical narrative to other collective actors (bourgeoisie, middle classes, minor political groups) than the sovereigns implies a renewal of the history and of the national historiography. As shown by the example of the Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne (Barante, 1824-1828), the narrative techniques of the historical novel are especially destined to set a political genealogy and a new historical legitimacy for the opponents of the ultra-royalism and the nobiliary elites. The historiographic network of liberal elites (Guizot, Barante, Sainte-Aulaire, Cousin, Villemain, de Broglie, Amédée and Augustin Thierry) spreads, in this context, a concurrent representation of the ultra-royalist theories of history and contributes to define, notably in the literary and political press (Les Archives politiques, philosophiques et littéraires, Le Lycée français, Le Globe, La Revue française), a legitimate practice of the historical novel: it must at the same time exclude both a class of authors and readers (authors and readers of the “artificial” and “sentimental” novels), and free itself from the political forms (satirical pamphlets, commentaries on current political affairs) and from classical narration (epistolary and serial novels). The politicization of the historical novel, the uses and the modes of circulation of the texts classified in this category, are one of the effects of the ideological field of this period (political embeddedness of cultural and scholarly activities, weak autonomy of the academic activities and of the literary and political press, polarization of ideological field between a new state nobility and the nobiliary elites). The circulation of the historical novel is also linked to the accessibility of the texts and to the work of the international and specialized mediators (critics, translators, preface writers). The imported texts constitute a set of ideological resources in the struggle to define the nation : Les Fiancés and several Scottish novels (Waverley, Quentin Durward, Rob Roy, Ivanhoé, Les puritains d’Ecosse, La prison d’Edimbourg, La Jolie Fille de Perth), deal with the theme of national states formation and national sovereignty. But the collective appropriation of these texts is preceded by a specific work of the national mediators (Claude Fauriel and Auguste Defauconpret in particular) involved in the new history network. The whole of these importing activities are justified by a philosophy of the work of importing that takes the form of a spontaneous theory of literary exchanges and of translations. The commentary of Les Fiancés by Sainte-Beuve gives an example of the national uses of a transnational literature: “L’Italie, malgré sa Toscane, a l’inconvénient de la province, c’est-à-dire qu’on y sent le manque d’un grand centre, d’une capitale qui donne le mouvement à la langue et en règle le ton à chaque moment. Dans cette incertitude, que faire, quand on a la noble ambition d’être écrivain ? S’en remettre à quelques juges d’élites, écrire en vue de leur suffrage, qui tient lieu et qui répond d’avance de tous les autres. En ce sens, Fauriel était un coin de la capitale de Manzoni, il était l’un des membres les plus éminents de cette capitale disséminée. Nous ne serons que vrai en affirmant que la publication en France des tragédies traduites par Fauriel, et les jugements dont il les accompagna, eurent à l’instant leur contrecoup en Italie ; les éloges de Goethe, que le critique avait enregistrés, ceux qu’il avait ajouté lui-même, ces glorieux ou graves suffrages, venant du dehors, ‘posaient’, comme on dit, Manzoni chez les siens et préparaient les voies au succès prodigieux de son roman.” This commentary shows that the historical novel is much more than a new literary genre. The historical novel appears mostly, during the first half of 19th century, as the fruit of collective ideological framings and of a particular international field of cultural exchanges.

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