De Chateaubriand Research Articles

Chateaubriand and the Politics of (Im)mortality

In the twenty-sixth book of his Mémoires d'outre-tombe, Chateaubriand recounts his 1821 arrival at the French embassy in Berlin. He cites a flattering portrait of him written by the Baroness of Hohenhausen and published in the morning press on March 22: "M. de Chateaubriand is of a somewhat short, yet slender, stature. His oval face has an expression of reverence and melancholy. He has black hair and black eyes that glow with the fire of his mind." 1 At this point, Chateaubriand flatly adds: "Mais j'ai les cheveux blancs; j'ai plus d'un siècle, en outre, je suis mort" ("But I have white hair; I am more than a century old, besides, I am dead") [2:39]. 2 Of course, those startling words, "en outre, je suis mort" do not refer to the year 1821, nor to the time Chateaubriand is writing this account. Rather, they refer to the time we, readers, turn to this specific page of the Mémoires: as you are reading this, Chateaubriand reminds us, I am dead. The words wrest us away from the event he is relating, his arrival in Berlin, to remind us in the most direct terms that our reading of these words necessarily entails the death of their author. Moreover, the French en outre brings us back to the very title of the Mémoires d'outre-tombe: outre-tombe, from beyond the grave.

Chateaubriand and Destutt de Tracy: Defining Religious and Secular Polarities in France at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century

Within ten years of the execution of Louis XVI two general and opposed features of the Old Regime, Catholic Christianity and Enlightenment rationality, were globally idealized by two authors—both of them former aristocrats— François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) and Antoine-Louis-Claude Destutt de Tracy (1754–1836). No two participants in the complex discussion of religion and secularism that took place at the highest levels of government and Parisian intellectual life at the end of the First Republic and during the Napoleonic regime better represented on the one hand unconditional nostalgia for Catholicism, and on the other uncompromising intellectual pursuit of the secular scientific ideal. Though it has become customary to oppose the Neo-Christian intellectuals Chateaubriand, De Maistre, De Bonald, and Ballanche, to the Idéologues Destutt de Tracy, Cabanis, Maine de Biran, and others, I believe that this opposition can be clarified if the extremes represented by Chateaubriand and De Tracy are better defined. In other words, a clear definition of the personal metaphysics—thoughts and feelings—of Chateaubriand and De Tracy should establish the polarities of intellectual temperament that characterized the Napoleonic era.

Romanticism and the Culture of Suicide in Nineteenth-Century France

An anonymous comment on the suicidal inclinations of great men appeared among the regular articles in an 1850 issue of the highly regarded journal of mental hygiene, the Annales médico-psychologiques. “Some curious rapprochements might be drawn,” the author suggested, “given the frequency with which this thought occurs among celebrated men; but it is clear that if insanity were the sole possible explanation, only the lot of the common people would be desirable.” On one level, this statement represents an editorial contribution to an intense debate taking place in the journal's pages concerning the relationship between suicide and insanity. Although most nineteenthcentury observers associated self-destructive behavior with mental instability, viewing the individual who sought to put an end to his existence as weak, if not perverse, a certain mystique also surrounded suicide at this time. Images of Christian martyrs who willingly courted death in preference to leading lives of pagan dishonor, of the self-sacrificing heroes of antiquity, existed alongside more contemporary renderings of unrequited lovers and world-weary young men familiar to readers of Romantic novels and the faits divers. A longing for death was a sign of sensitivity and artistic promise. “Suicide,” wrote the influential critic, Saint-Marc Girardin, “is not the malady of one who is simple of heart or in mind; it is the malady of the refined and of philosophers.” Alphonse de Lamartine, George Sand, Alfred de Musset, Benjamin Constant, and the Vicomte de Chateaubriand all confessed to having been tempted to kill themselves in their youth. No less an idol than Napoleon Bonaparte was known to have entertained morbid ideas on occasion.

Francis Parkman's Oration "Romance in America"

ON August 28, 1844,1 the twenty-one-year-old Francis Parkman delivered a commencement oration on the occasion of his graduation from Harvard. The original manuscript, lodged among his papers in the Harvard College Library and unknown to present-day historians, is in Parkman's, handwriting, signed F. Parkman, August '44. Romance in America, as Parkman called the oration, reveals for us the springs from which his later work flowed, providing us with new insight into the romantic concept of history held by one of our greatest historians. Indeed, Parkman's later multivolumed masterpiece France and England in North America is, in many respects, a projection of the ideas that so, fascinated Parkman in these early undergraduate days. Certainly Parkman's, interests crystallized remarkably early in his career, so that the reading of his college days was of real value to him in his literary work. As he himself noted, in a letter written many years later, a literary career early suggested itself as combining his two boyhood loves: love of the forest and of books.2 What is known of Parkman's academic career supports, his own contention that he was a lover of books. For his scholastic record at Harvard, which was excellent though not brilliant,3 masks the fact that the prescribed curriculum was only a minor part of his program of study.4 From his, early reading lists and correspondence it is apparent that he carried. on a secondary pro; gram of reading in literature, ethnology, and history, with particular emphasis on the romantic themes of Fran;ois Rene de Chateaubriand, Jules Michelet, Sir Walter Scott, and James Fenimore Cooper, all of which readied him for his own literary works

Quelques aspects de l'archaisme dans l'oeuvre de Chateaubriand

Journal Article QUELQUES ASPECTS DE L' ARCHAÏSME DANS L'ŒUVRE DE CHATEAUBRIAND Get access J. M. GAUTIER J. M. GAUTIER MANCHESTER Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar French Studies, Volume II, Issue 4, October 1948, Pages 315–323, https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/II.4.315 Published: 01 October 1948

QUELQUES ASPECTS DE L' ARCHAÏSME DANS L'ŒUVRE DE CHATEAUBRIAND

Journal Article QUELQUES ASPECTS DE L' ARCHAÏSME DANS L'ŒUVRE DE CHATEAUBRIAND Get access J. M. GAUTIER J. M. GAUTIER MANCHESTER Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar French Studies, Volume II, Issue 4, October 1948, Pages 315–323, https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/II.4.315 Published: 01 October 1948

A Chateaubriand Rarity

The libary of John H. Wrenn, acquired by The University of Texas, contains an editio princeps which would seem to be of some importance to students of the history of French literature. The work in question is listed in the Catalogue of the Wrenn library, as follows:Chateaubriand, Vicomte de: Maison de France, ou Recueil de Pièces Relatives à la Légitimité et à la Famille Royale. Par M. le Vicomte de Chateaubriand, Pair de France. Tome Premier (Tome Second), Paris, Le Normant Père, Libraire, Rue de Seine No. 8, Faubourg Saint-Germain, 1825.