Narrative, Catastrophe and Historicity in Eighteenth-century French Literature

Abstract

This is surely an ambitious, original and complex book. In it, Jessica Stacey displays a remarkable knowledge of eighteenth-century French thought as well as a solid understanding of how historical narratives are formed and function. Her main aim is to cast light on the ways in which changing perceptions of historical time affected feelings of nationhood and national belonging in eighteenth-century France. She does so by considering a series of literary works and analysing the representations and interpretations of man-made catastrophes contained in them. The choice to focus on disasters of this sort when explaining national boundary formation is properly and intelligently justified by the author. As Stacey points out, ‘catastrophe’, a ubiquitous notion in a time far less optimistic than is normally assumed, acquired in the eighteenth century a new meaning (previous meanings living on, alongside it) partly forged through the opposition between catastrophes willed by God and catastrophes caused by men. The latter, which are the focus of this book, could and had to be properly understood. Whether historical or imaginary, they could be subject to human inquiry and, by the same token, they might then serve as a ‘powerful tool of critique’. In particular, investigating and explaining how a catastrophe had been overcome in the past could offer those stricken the means to face an ongoing disaster; but it could also foster a feeling of unity, supplying an image of a community of belonging which, thanks to its ingenuity, resilience and strength, had once been able to overcome the devastation caused by war or civil war. From this angle, analysing either a real or a fictitious catastrophe could, in some circumstances, more or less unwittingly contribute to forging a feeling of historical community—that is, a national narrative. Obviously, for this to be the case, a convincing continuity between past and present community/communities had to be established. This is a crucial aspect, one that is properly considered in this book. In fact, by building on Reinhart Koselleck’s ideas about changing perceptions of historical time and on François Hartog’s ‘regimes of historicity’, Stacey has been able to highlight ‘catastrophe’s dual role as narrative device and object of historical study’.