Todorov's "New" Humanism: France's "Imperfect Garden"

Abstract

work in English dealing with topics such as life in the concentration camps and the Franco-French struggle in Occupied France during World War II, the subjects of Todorov's latest books published in France may come as something of a surprise. The first of these, a brief monograph published in 1997 entitled Benjamin Constant: La passion ddmocratique (Benjamin Constant: The Passion for Democracy)' examines the political philosophy and humanistic thought of a nineteenth-century writer known primarily for his brief Romantic novelistic masterpiece, Adolphe. The second book, Le Jardin imparfait: La pensde humaniste en France (The Imperfect Garden: Humanist Thought in France) appeared in August of this year.' Le Jardin imparfait follows along the same general lines as Benjamin Constant, but it is much more ambitious in range and scope than the earlier work. As its subtitle suggests, the book is nothing less than a reassessment of French humanism from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. It deals with the great French political philosophers and moralistes from Montaigne to Constant, including Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Rousseau, Montequieu, and Tocqueville. Le Jardin imparfait: La pensde humaniste is an admirable book. Like so many of Todorov's works, it is a tour de force of incisive analysis and erudition. But the more interesting question, perhaps, is why this book, and why now? Benjamin Constant: La passion ddmocratique is, in essence, a brief tribute to a writer whose many contributions, especially in the area of political and moral philosophy, have not been adequately recognized in Todorov's view. It is conceived, moreover, something like a Twayne Authors Series book, including a chronology of Constant's life, chapters on Constant's ideas on liberal democracy, moral philosophy, and love, and finally analyses of his fiction and memoires. One could argue, then, that Benjamin Constant: La passion ddmocratique, fascinating though it is, is something of a sideline when viewed in relation to Todorov's intellectual trajectory over the last several years. But the same cannot be said of Le Jardin imparfait, a