Reading against History: The Unfolding of the Literary Work in Péguy’s Clio

Abstract

A fierce opponent of the historicist approach to literature that dominated French academe during his lifetime, the essayist and poet Charles Péguy (1873–1914) would theorize an alternative literary method that through the act of faithful and participatory reading could transcend the limitations of historicism. Outlined in his dialogue with History, Clio, Péguy’s vision of the literary act is that of an intersubjective operation of mutual understanding between reader and author, in which the living relevance of literary works extends beyond their narrow historical origins; a conception that prefigures the formalist and hermeneutic literary approaches that will arise decades later.