Stendhal ‘romantique’? Stendhal et les romantismes européens. Sous la direction de Marie-Rose Corredor.

Abstract

Conceived in the university that bore Stendhal’s name until 2015, this collection of eighteen essays establishes two principal lines of enquiry: firstly, it aims to pose questions about how Romanticism, which the collection asserts as plural, influenced Stendhal’s literary and journalistic work; secondly, it seeks to understand how the Romantic genre found itself reflected and refracted in that work. The collection defines Romanticism as a pan-European and interdisciplinary movement that, although most prominent in literature and the visual arts, was instrumental in the forging of liberalism and radicalism and thus eventually the formulation of nationalism. The collection proposes that Stendhal’s critical attitudes towards Romanticism, and particularly towards Revolution, allow scholars to understand Romanticism’s trajectory from pan-European ideal to localized nationalism, and it is in this area that the collection is particularly strong. Francesco Spandri and Xavier Bourdenet respectively offer Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Walter Scott as important antecedents for Stendhal’s Romanticism. Using the lens of Romanticism and Bonapartism, François Vanoosthuyse’s essay presents an accomplished discussion on Stendhal’s complicated perception of Italian language, literature, and identity after the Napoleonic Wars. George Rosa’s essay, the only one of the collection to be written in English, is a meticulously researched exploration of Stendhal’s introduction into the Byronic cult and neatly introduces Christopher W. Thompson’s essay on Stendhal and English Romanticism. The highlight of the collection is its analysis of the links between revolution, national identity, and the Romantic genre: Yves Ansel and Michel Crouzet both contribute excellent essays on this nexus of history, myth, and literature. The collection admirably strives to extend its definition of ‘Europe’ to include Hungary, Poland, and Russia, although these attempts are circumscribed by Stendhal’s admittedly limited interest in Central and Eastern Europe. Indeed, faithfulness to the content of Stendhal’s own writings leads the collection to neglect questions that are necessitated by the field of Romantic studies, if not by Stendhal’s œuvre itself. For example, despite the collection’s agreed concern with multiple European Romanticisms, the volume does surprisingly little to probe the different definitions of Romanticism across Europe from the perspectives of different constituent nations. If this oversight had been addressed, Romanticism’s nationalist legacy might have been more satisfyingly squared with the movement’s pan-European beginnings on which the collection focuses. Furthermore, due to the attention paid to Stendhal’s journalistic writing, the collection fails to consider how its conclusions are borne out, or subverted, by Stendhal’s novelistic projects. Notwithstanding these omissions, the volume remains an important contribution to Stendhal studies: the ongoing debate in nineteenth-century French studies about Stendhal’s credentials as a Romantic or a realist writer has surely been advanced by this well-conceived and erudite collection.