Histoire littéraire et mémoire nationale1

Abstract

The object of this article is to analyze the birth of literary history defined as the awareness of an evolving body of a nation's works and writers. Note is taken of the part played in the process by monarchical power, which saw in its role as guardian of the country's culture a means of asserting legitimacy, and attention is given to the evolution of the status of writers and their idea of their mission. To illustrate his thesis, the author examines the publication in 1733 of the Histoire litteraire de la France by the Benedictine monks of Saint Maur. He defines its aims and its approach, demonstrates therein the emerging sense of a national culture and discusses the project's political implications. The commercial failure of the Histoire litteraire belies its overall importance, for the movement it effectively began led to the compulsory teaching of literary history in the place of rhetoric, to the establishment of a national pantheon of writers and to confrontations and concerns whose significance far ...