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Taine et la critique scientifique
Book Reviews
956 Taine et la critique scientifique, Jean-Thomas France, 1993), Ecrivains, 406 pp., 295 ff.
Nordmann
(Paris: Presses Universitaires
de
It is hardly surprising that, in a book which seeks to rehabilitate Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893) and argue that his critical works were a decisive stage in the history of literary criticism, Jean-Thomas Nordmann should initially have to adopt a somewhat defensive stance. ‘Ma/g& cette place centrale et en dipit de quelques rPCditions rkentes’, he writes, ‘Taine continue B souffrir dun indeniable discredit’ (p. 13). Clearly feeling for his subject the pain of neglect, Nordmann attempts, in this abridged and revised version of his 1989 Sorbonne thesis, to make Taine’s critical ideas and accomplishments more accessible to the modern reader by the rather dubious route of explicating their philosophical foundations. The author’s intentions and devotion are admirable, but it is a formidable challenge. Despite the claim quoted above, the ‘quelques rttditions’ of Taine’s works, as the author’s bibliography shows, are limited, at least in France, to no more than three texts, none of which includes his critical works, and the most recent anthology listed, edited by Georges Pompidou in fact, dates from 1953. Furthermore, judging by the paucity of recent studies listed, Nordmann seems to have embarked upon the task almost single-handedly. As Rene Wellek wrote in 1965, in his History of Modern Criticism: I750-1950, ‘one has the impression that, at least outside of France, he [Taine] is not read any more’ (p. 27). This even seems to be the case now in France. The problem is, as commentators invariably point out, that Taine has come to be associated with a particularly rigid system, summed up in the formulas that come to mind when his name is evoked: the tripartite scheme of race-milieu-moment according to which the artist’s work can be causally (and exhaustively) explained; the ‘facuk maitresse’, the unifying principle from which the writer’s works and thought exclusively derive; the much-quoted declaration, which Taine came to regret, that ‘vice and virtue are products like vitriol and sugar’. As one might expect, to reduce Taine’s ideas to his own reductive formulas is to do him a grave injustice. Nordmann meticulously and vigorously demonstrates and explores the complexity and diversity of Taine’s ideas, the manifold sources of his evolving thought, the recurrent preoccupations and unifying methodological principles of his system, the broad scope of his interests and of the application of his ideas: scientific methodology, psychology, history, art, esthetics, sociology, stylistics, as well as literary criticism. It is tempting to revise the common view and suggest that Taine’s lack of recognition today stems more accurately from the very diversity of his views, from the protean spirit that is out of tune with our age of specialisation. But more honestly one would have to conclude that it is Taine’s ideas themselves that are out of favour: his overarching claims, his essentialism and totalising perspectives, his cult of great works, his privileging of heroes, his emphasis on the author. His judgments seem quaint to modern tastes and even his much-admired study of Balzac is of far more interest as a critical landmark than as a contribution to the study of the novelist and his works. Nevertheless, in his conclusion, Jean-Thomas Nordmann makes a vigorous plea for Taine as an important precursor of several modern critical approaches: sociological, stylistic, historical and cultural trends, as well as reception theory. Perhaps many of his pioneering views have become so much a part of the tacit assumptions of much criticism since his day that they are rarely acknowledged. We need to be more concerned like Taine with the Origins of (criticism in) himself, Nordmann’s book clearly implies, Contemporary France. David Baguley University of Durham
History of European Ideas
956 Taine et la critique scientifique, Jean-Thomas France, 1993), Ecrivains, 406 pp., 295 ff.
Nordmann
(Paris: Presses Universitaires
de
It is hardly surprising that, in a book which seeks to rehabilitate Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893) and argue that his critical works were a decisive stage in the history of literary criticism, Jean-Thomas Nordmann should initially have to adopt a somewhat defensive stance. ‘Ma/g& cette place centrale et en dipit de quelques rPCditions rkentes’, he writes, ‘Taine continue B souffrir dun indeniable discredit’ (p. 13). Clearly feeling for his subject the pain of neglect, Nordmann attempts, in this abridged and revised version of his 1989 Sorbonne thesis, to make Taine’s critical ideas and accomplishments more accessible to the modern reader by the rather dubious route of explicating their philosophical foundations. The author’s intentions and devotion are admirable, but it is a formidable challenge. Despite the claim quoted above, the ‘quelques rttditions’ of Taine’s works, as the author’s bibliography shows, are limited, at least in France, to no more than three texts, none of which includes his critical works, and the most recent anthology listed, edited by Georges Pompidou in fact, dates from 1953. Furthermore, judging by the paucity of recent studies listed, Nordmann seems to have embarked upon the task almost single-handedly. As Rene Wellek wrote in 1965, in his History of Modern Criticism: I750-1950, ‘one has the impression that, at least outside of France, he [Taine] is not read any more’ (p. 27). This even seems to be the case now in France. The problem is, as commentators invariably point out, that Taine has come to be associated with a particularly rigid system, summed up in the formulas that come to mind when his name is evoked: the tripartite scheme of race-milieu-moment according to which the artist’s work can be causally (and exhaustively) explained; the ‘facuk maitresse’, the unifying principle from which the writer’s works and thought exclusively derive; the much-quoted declaration, which Taine came to regret, that ‘vice and virtue are products like vitriol and sugar’. As one might expect, to reduce Taine’s ideas to his own reductive formulas is to do him a grave injustice. Nordmann meticulously and vigorously demonstrates and explores the complexity and diversity of Taine’s ideas, the manifold sources of his evolving thought, the recurrent preoccupations and unifying methodological principles of his system, the broad scope of his interests and of the application of his ideas: scientific methodology, psychology, history, art, esthetics, sociology, stylistics, as well as literary criticism. It is tempting to revise the common view and suggest that Taine’s lack of recognition today stems more accurately from the very diversity of his views, from the protean spirit that is out of tune with our age of specialisation. But more honestly one would have to conclude that it is Taine’s ideas themselves that are out of favour: his overarching claims, his essentialism and totalising perspectives, his cult of great works, his privileging of heroes, his emphasis on the author. His judgments seem quaint to modern tastes and even his much-admired study of Balzac is of far more interest as a critical landmark than as a contribution to the study of the novelist and his works. Nevertheless, in his conclusion, Jean-Thomas Nordmann makes a vigorous plea for Taine as an important precursor of several modern critical approaches: sociological, stylistic, historical and cultural trends, as well as reception theory. Perhaps many of his pioneering views have become so much a part of the tacit assumptions of much criticism since his day that they are rarely acknowledged. We need to be more concerned like Taine with the Origins of (criticism in) himself, Nordmann’s book clearly implies, Contemporary France. David Baguley University of Durham
History of European Ideas