Meryl Tyers (review)

Abstract

MLR, q6. , 2001 MLR, q6. , 2001 Vachon'sintroductorytour d'horizon isfollowedby forty-fivetexts,writtenbetween 1829 and 1926, by thirty-six authors, each situated, as in Tilby's Balzac, by a biographical/bibliographical notice at the end of the volume. Although it is not obvious whether this anthology is a work to read or consult, it can no doubt be adapted, like Balzac himself, to suit all tastes, both making familiar texts more accessible and introducingthe balzacien (or non-balzacien) to lesser-knownmaterial. In Balzac'slifetime it is, perhaps inevitably, the well-knownpieces that remain the most memorable, from Sainte-Beuve'sperfidious 834 critiqueof Balzac's'vocabulaire incoh&rent' toJanin's spiritedrejoinderto Balzac'sattackson the press(I843). BothcriticsderidedBalzac'spopularitywithwomen readers,although,interestingly, only one woman seems to figurein the currentcollection: George Sand exhorting: 'I1faut donc lire tout Balzac' since 'rien de plus complet n'est jamais sorti d'un cerveaud'ecrivain'. AfterBalzac'sdeath, describedand commemoratedby Hugo, fellow-writerssuch as Baudelaire,Bourget,James, Proust,Valles,and Zola (alreadycited by Tilby) are complemented by appreciations from Vigny, Gautier, and Louys. Increasingly professional literary critics are also usefully represented by Brunetiere, Faguet, Lanson, and Taine and, less predictably,by PierreLarousse'ssevere 1867 'Balzac' Dictionnaire universel entry. It is splendid to have these and other contributions so generously assembledin one volume (Taine alone has fiftypages) and tojuxtapose critical 'personnages reparaissants'such as Taine on Balzac and then James on Taine, Sainte-Beuve on Balzac and then Proust on Sainte-Beuve. When this collection is considered alongside the earlierwork of Bellos, Tilby, and other etats presents (for example in L'Annee balzacienne i992) a more thorough-going analytical surveyof over 50 yearsof Balzac criticismbecomes eminentlypossible. UNIVERSITY OF BRADFORD OWEN HEATHCOTE Critical Fictions: Nerval's 'Les Illumines'. By MERYL TYERS. (Legenda: Research Monographs in French Studies, 3) Oxford: European Humanities Research Centre. I998. xvi + 122 pp. Of all Gerard de Nerval's major publications, Les Illumineshas attracted the least critical attention. Appearing in 1852, it comprised separately published pieces dating back several years, and many critics have seen it as ajob-lot of value only for the light it sheds on the later masterpieces Aurdliaand Les Filles dufeu. For her part, Meryl Tyers considers the book 'a singular, intra-textually patterned entity' worthy of consideration in its own right. Nerval's text groups the semi-fictionalized biographies of the madman Raoul Spifame, the elusive adventurer Abbe de Bucquoy, the visionary writers Retif de la Bretonne and Jacques Cazotte, the mesmerist Cagliostro, and the occult philosopher Quintus Aucler. These six mavericks reflect aspects of Nerval himself, who thus becomes the implicit seventh in the series. Tyers argues that Nerval selected his Illuminati less as partisans of a religious doctrine than as prefigurations of a Romantic, even a Rimbaldian, model of visionary illumination.While assembling a wealth of comments from contemporary reviewers such as Charles Asselineau and Paulin Limayrac or more recent critics such as Gerard Schaeffer, Beatrice Didier, MichelJeanneret, and Shoshana Felman, Tyers manages equally to place Nerval's book within a typological constellation that includes Philarete Chasles' 'Les Excentriques' (1834) and Champfleury's Les Excentriques (1852). She further invokes Rodolphe Topffer and Heinrich Heine, each of whom boasted an uncle with a library of occult books. Now, the one piece Nerval composed afresh for Les Illuminesis its prologue, 'La Bibliotheque de mon oncle', Vachon'sintroductorytour d'horizon isfollowedby forty-fivetexts,writtenbetween 1829 and 1926, by thirty-six authors, each situated, as in Tilby's Balzac, by a biographical/bibliographical notice at the end of the volume. Although it is not obvious whether this anthology is a work to read or consult, it can no doubt be adapted, like Balzac himself, to suit all tastes, both making familiar texts more accessible and introducingthe balzacien (or non-balzacien) to lesser-knownmaterial. In Balzac'slifetime it is, perhaps inevitably, the well-knownpieces that remain the most memorable, from Sainte-Beuve'sperfidious 834 critiqueof Balzac's'vocabulaire incoh&rent' toJanin's spiritedrejoinderto Balzac'sattackson the press(I843). BothcriticsderidedBalzac'spopularitywithwomen readers,although,interestingly, only one woman seems to figurein the currentcollection: George Sand exhorting: 'I1faut donc lire tout Balzac' since 'rien de plus complet n'est jamais sorti d'un cerveaud'ecrivain'. AfterBalzac'sdeath, describedand commemoratedby...