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Populism in the Novel Before Naturalism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The affinity of modern Populism to certain aspects of the Naturalist school in France has found general acceptance. Few critics, however, have attempted to trace this line of descent further back into the nineteenth century. Zola himself saw no precursors in the field of the proletarian novel beyond the confines of his own school, and cited Germinie Lacerteux as the first work bringing to the novel a sympathetic treatment of the humbler classes of society. Mr. Felix Walter has shown that the famous preface to the first edition of this novel constitutes a variety of pre-populist manifesto. Yet the claim of the Goncourt brothers to have produced “un roman vrai”—like their boast: “ce livre vient de la rue” —strikes no new note in the literary history of France. Almost a century earlier Rétif de la Bretonne had advanced substantially the same claim for his Pied de Fanchette, further noting that this seeming originality belonged to still another before him.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1939
References
1 Les Romanciers Naturalistes (Paris: Charpentier, 1890), p. 244: “Germinie Lacerteux, dans notre litérature contemporaine, est une date. Le livre fait entrer le peuple dans le roman.”
2 PMLA, xlix (1934), 357.
3 Germinie Lacerteux, Edition définitive de l'Académie Goncourt (Paris: Flammarion), p. 5.
4 Op. cit. (Paris: Quantin, 1881), p. 2: “Si je n'avais eu pour but que de plaire, le tissu de cet ouvrage aurait été différent ... mais il fallait dire la vérite” See also the author's statement of aim on page 275: “On n'écrit sur le peuple que pour le ridiculiser . .. Quoi done! ceux qui constituent la nation seront la fable du petit nombre d'ingrats qu'ils nourrissent!... Ce qu'il y a de plus sacré, de plus respectable, de plus saint, e'est essentiellement le peuple et ses droits.”
5 Ibid., p. 275: “M. de Voltaire ... a le premier rendu respectable un vieux soldat dans Nanine.”
6 Of the four critics who have made some mention of Souvestre since his death, only Hunt has dealt with the social aspect of his writings. See H. J. Hunt, Le Socialisme et le Romantisme en France (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1935), pp. 278–280.
7 The monograph of Le Goffic should be mentioned here, although it deals specifically with a single unpublished manuscript dating from the author's college years. See Ch. Le Goffic, L'Ame Bretonne, première série (Paris: Champion, 1908), pp. 160–167.
8 In Les Souvenirs d'un Vieillard (Paris: Lévy, 1858).
9 Emile Souvestre's Leben und Verhältnis zur Heimath (Stralsund: Programm der Realschule I, March 17, 1864).
10 Cited in Lesbazeilles, op. cit., p. x.
11 Goffic, Le, op.,cit., p. 160.Google Scholar
12 Lesbazeilles, op. cit., p. xi.
13 Ibid., p. xiv.
14 He had begun this series as early as 1833, with a study, “La Cornouaille.” See RDM (1833, 3), 686. Some traces of political radicalism are evident even here. The attitude of the politically conservative Revue des Deux Monies toward Souvestre forms an illuminating commentary upon the gradual intensification of the author's socialist theories in literature. As late as L'Echelle de Femmes the Revue spoke kindly of Souvestre as “un de nos jeunes collaborateurs,” calling this latest novel “un ouvrage plein d'intérêt et de charme.” See RDM (1835, 1), 229. Only upon the publication of L'Homme et l'Argent three years later did the social aims of Souvestre become so evident as to draw the condemnation of the Revue, which commented: “Au point de vue littéraire, le sujet péchait par la base.” See RDM (1838, 2), 728.
15 Op. cit., p. vi.
16 Op. cit., p. 278.
17 Toward the end of his life, Souvestre was attracted by Stuart-Mill. His Souvenirs d'un Vieillard offers a lengthy justification of the latter's “gospel of leisure.” Vide op. cit., p. 153.
18 Lesbazeilles, op. cit., p. xxv.
19 Souvenirs d'un Vieillard, p. 10.
20 For a description of Sue's sudden decision: “Je suis socialiste,” following a performance of Pyat's Deux Serruriers, see the “Souvenirs littéraires” of Pyat in the Revue de Paris et de Saint-Pétersbourg (February, 1885).
21 Souvenirs d'un Vieillard, p. 8.
22 Vide, for example, the Histoire de Guillaume, cocher, in the Facéties of Caylus (Paris, 1879).
23 Op. cit., p. 29.
24 Ibid., p. 58.
25 Op. cit. (Paris: Lévy, 1858), p. 149.
26 Op. cit. (Paris: Lévy, 1863), p. 85.
27 Op. cit. (Brussels: Lacroix & Verboeckhoven, 1865), i, 65.
28 Œuvres complètes (Paris: Quantin), v, 217.
29 This famous feuilleton became the model for no less than ten contemporary imitations, not including Zola's later Mystères de Marseille. Vide RDM (1847, 4), 684.
30 For Sue the struggle of the working-class against an industrial aristocracy was merely a continuation of the battle of the Celtic element for freedom from Frankish domination. On the basis of this theory he is able to evoke his native province of Brittany as the home of proletarian idealism.
31 Preface to Les Mystères da Peuple.
32 Souvenirs d'un Vieillard, p. 121.
33 Paul Féval (1817–1887), another important member of the “école socialisante” of the early part of the century, who produced a Mystères de Londres intended to rival the work of Sue. After conversion to the Church in 1876, he re-edited his complete works with the object of deleting subversive material.
34 Souvenirs d'un Vieillard, p. 146.