La Peau de Weltliteratur

Abstract

Abstract Honoré de Balzac’s La Peau de chagrin is a window into a pivotal moment in the international circulation of the idea of Weltliteratur. Published just four years after Goethe coined the term, Balzac’s novel both instantiated and theorized the concept. To make this case, I first trace the novel’s transtextual dialogue with Goethe’s theater and theory. Then, drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Gisèle Sapiro, I specify which tenets of Goethe’s model hold and which shift in that transfer. Heightened Eurocentricism speaks to a distinction between the French and German literary fields, mediated by the newspaper Le Globe. Increased skepticism toward the regime is mediated by Balzac himself, revealing a peculiar class of agents of Weltliteratur: conscious beneficiaries who remained, paradoxically, unwilling participants.