The 18th century: from Louis XIV to the Revolution The Enlightenment The death of Louis XIV on September 1, 1715, closed an epoch; the date of 1715 is a useful starting point for the Enlightenment. But the beginnings of critical thought go back much further, to about 1680, where one can begin to discern a new intellectual climate of independent inquiry and the questioning of received ideas and traditions. The earlier date permits the inclusion of two important precursors. Pierre Bayle, a Protestant forced into exile by the repressive policies of Louis XIV against the Huguenots, paved the way for later attacks upon the established church by his own onslaught upon Roman Catholic dogma and, beyond that, upon rationalist ideologies of all kinds. His skepticism was constructive, however, underlying a fervent advocacy of toleration based on respect for freedom of conscience. In particular, his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697; 2nd ed., 1702) became an arsenal of knowledge and critical ideas alike for the 18th century. Bayle's contemporary Fontenelle continued in Descartes's wake to make knowledge, especially of science, more accessible to the educated layman. His Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes (1686; A Plurality of Worlds) explains the Copernican universe in simple terms, the author expounding his lessons with characteristic gallantry to an attractive marquise on six moonlit evenings in the park of her chateau. The Histoire des oracles (1687) complements this popular erudition by a rationalist critique of erroneous legends. Fontenelle helped to lay the basis for empirical observation as the proper approach to scientific truth. Both Bayle and Fontenelle promoted the Enlightenment principle that the pursuit of verifiable knowledge was a central human activity. Bayle was concerned with the problem of evil, which seemed to him a mystery in which philosophical speculation was gratuitous and understandable by faith alone. But such unknowable matters did not at all invalidate the search for hard fact, as the Dictionnaire abundantly shows. Fontenelle, for his part, saw that the furtherance of truth depended upon the elimination of error, arising as it did from human laziness in unquestioningly accepting received ideas or from human love of mystery. Though both thinkers shared a pessimistic view of human nature, they also saw ways in which the human condition could be improved. The Baron de Montesquieu, the first of the great Enlightenment authors, demonstrated a liberal approach to the world fitting in with a pluralist view of society. His Lettres persanes (1721; Persian Letters) were at once successful and established his reputation. Purporting to be letters written to and by two Persians visiting France, they depict a contemporary Paris full of vitality and movement but precariously vulnerable to possible despotism. His interest in social mechanisms and causation is pursued further in the Considerations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur decadence (1734; Reflections on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decline of the Romans). To explain Rome's greatness and decline, Montesquieu invokes the notion of an esprit general ("general spirit"), a set of secondary causes underlying each society and determining its developments. Herein are the seeds of De l'esprit des lois (1748; The Spirit of Laws), the preparation of which took 14 years. This great work brought political discussion into the public arena in France by its insistence upon the need, in whatever form of society, to maintain liberty as prime object of concern. Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet), on any count, bestrides the Enlightenment. Whether as dramatist, historian, reformer, poet, philosopher, or correspondent, for 60 years he remained an intellectual leader in France. A stay in England (1726-28) led to the Lettres philosophiques (1734), which, taking England as a polemical model of philosophical freedom, experimental use of reason, and respectful patronage of arts and science, offered a program for a whole civilization. In later years Voltaire's onslaught upon the power of the Roman Catholic Church became more direct, as he denounced its doctrines and practices in countless pamphlets and the Dictionnaire philosophique (1764; The Philosophical Dictionary), the vade mecum of Voltairean attitudes. He laboured on historical works all his life, producing most notably Le Siecle de Louis XIV (1751; The Age of Louis XIV) and the Essai sur les moeurs (1756; "Essay on Customs"), the latter a world history of a half-million words. Above all, it was the growth of civilizations and cultures that particularly commanded his attention and formidable energy. He is best remembered for the tale Candide (1759), a savage denunciation of metaphysical optimism ("all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds") that reveals a world of horrors and folly. In Candide's characters the instinct of survival remains uppermost, however, and provides a ray of hope in an otherwise sombre scene. Candide at last renounces absolute truths as futile and settles for the simple life of "cultivating his garden." The conte ("tale") called L'Ingenu (1767) continued this lesson; Voltaire turned from metaphysics to social satire upon the corrupt French government (set with prudence retrospectively in Louis XIV's reign). Reformist appeals to justice were the main focus of Voltaire's writings in his last 20 years, as he protested against such outrages as the executions, religiously motivated, of Jean Calas and the Chevalier de La Barre. Another universal genius of the age was Denis Diderot. He occupied a somewhat less exalted place, however, essentially because most of his greatest works were published only posthumously. But his encylopaedic range is undeniable. Theorist of the bourgeois drama, author of the greatest French antinovel of the century (Jacques le fataliste, 1796), and the first great French art critic (Salons), Diderot seized on the vision of a world materialistic and godless yet pulsating with energy and the unexpected. Jacques le fataliste captures the fluidity of a disconcerting universe where nothing is ever quite clear-cut or totally under control. Jacques represents it suitably by believing in fatalism yet acting with decisiveness when he wishes, just as if he possessed free will. Diderot's interest in the plasticity of matter, where categories such as animal, vegetable, and mineral never seemed as distinct as conventional thought suggested, combined with an interest in biology, nowhere better exemplified than in Le Reve de d'Alembert (written 1769, published 1830; The Dream of d'Alembert). This work is written in the characteristic form of a dialogue, allowing Diderot to range free with speculative questions rather than attempt firm answers. In his own day Diderot was best known as editor of the Encyclopedie, a vast work in 17 folio volumes of text and 11 of illustrations. He and Jean Le Rond d'Alembert inaugurated the undertaking in 1751, and Diderot edited alone from 1758 until the final volume of plates appeared in 1772. A summation of knowledge rather than a radically polemical enterprise, the Encyclopedie is, however, the epitome of the Enlightenment, disseminating information to improve the human lot, reduce theological superstition, and, in Diderot's words from his key article "Encyclopedie," "change the common way of thinking." Drama Tragedy and the survival of Classical form Classical tragedy survived into the 18th century, most notably in the theatre of Voltaire, which dominated the Comedie-Francaise from the premiere of Oedipe (1718) to that of Agathocle (1779). But even in Voltaire a profound change in sensibility is apparent as pity reigns supreme, to the exclusion of terror. Tragedy, in the view of Fontenelle or the Abbe Dubos, should teach men virtue and humanity. Voltaire's Zare (1732) does just that, through the spectacle of Christian intolerance overwhelming the eponymous heroine, torn as she is between the religion of her French Catholic forefathers and the Muslim faith of her future husband, a Turk. No fatality of character destroys her, but simply the failings of Christians unworthy of their creed, allied to gratuitous and avoidable chance. Such pathos, often touching, is not the stuff of great tragedy. Marivaux and Beaumarchais The best of 18th-century drama takes a different course. Pierre Marivaux wrote more than 30 comedies, mostly between 1720 and 1740, bearing for the most part upon the psychology of love. Typically, the Marivaudian protagonist is a refined young lady who finds herself, to her bewilderment or even despair, falling in love despite herself, thereby losing her autonomy of judgment and action. La Surprise de l'amour, a title Marivaux used twice (1722, 1727), becomes a regular motif, the interest of each play resting in the delicate changes of attitude and circumstance rung by the dramatist. His sympathy for the generally likable heroes and heroines stops short, however, of indulgence. The action is dramatic essentially because the characters' stubborn pride, central to their being, has to succumb to the demands of their instincts. Vanity, in Marivaux's view, is endemic to human nature. In Le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard (1730; The Game of Love and Chance), the plot of which is based on masters disguised as servants and vice versa, a heroine named Silvia experiences profound consternation at the quite unacceptable prospect of falling for a valet. When she learns the happy truth, her relief immediately gives way to a determination to force her lover Dorante into surrender while he still thinks her a servant. As her father puts it, "What an insatiable vanity of amour propre!" Many plays deal more explicitly with social barriers created by rank or money, like La Double Inconstance (1723) and Les Fausses Confidences (1737). As the subtlety of Marivaux's perceptions has become better understood, he has come to be regarded as the fourth great classic (after Corneille, Racine, and Moliere) of the French theatre. Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais is best remembered for two comic masterpieces, Le Barbier de Seville (1775; The Barber of Seville) and Le Mariage de Figaro (1784; The Marriage of Figaro). Both are dominated by Figaro, a scheming dynamo of wit and generosity. He is a wholly free man in the first play, plotting his master Almaviva's conquest of Rosine, but he is obliged in the second play to defend his fiancee, Suzanne, against Almaviva's irresponsible meddling. (Some critics have detected a prerevolutionary quality to Le Mariage, but the evidence is too insubstantial to sustain this thesis.) As much as the sharpness of wit and character, the brilliance of structure wins admiration. All is movement and vicissitude, Le Mariage in particular with its 92 scenes (about thrice the average number in a Classical play) and profusion of theatrical "business" rising to the magisterial imbroglio of the final act. Bourgeois drama Yet Beaumarchais himself espoused the drame bourgeois ("bourgeois drama," or "middle-class tragedy") in his Essai sur le genre dramatique serieux (1767). He wrote several drames, among them the sequel to Le Mariage in L'Autre Tartuffe, ou La Mere coupable (1792). The growing importance of sentiment on the stage had proved as inimical to Classical comedy as to Classical tragedy. More popular was a type of comedy both serious and moralistic, like Le Glorieux (1732; The Conceited Count) by Philippe Nericault Destouches, who claimed in the preface that he wanted to "purify society," or the comedies larmoyantes ("tearful comedies") of Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussee, which enjoyed great popularity when they appeared in the 1730s and '40s. Diderot's Entretiens sur le fils naturel (1757) gave a theoretical underpinning to the new mood. The author called for a "tragedie domestique et bourgeoise," realistic and affecting, able to inspire strong emotions and incline audiences to more elevated states of mind. This "genre serieux" ("serious genre"), reacting against the articulate tirades of Classical tragedy, would draw on pantomime and tableaux or inarticulate speech rather than on eloquent discursiveness. Beaumarchais's own prescriptions run on similar lines. Though Diderot's plays did not live up to his theories, the emphasis upon middle-class virtuousness was to be made dramatically effective in Michel-Jean Sedaine's Le Philosophe sans le savoir (1765; "The Unwitting Philosopher"; Eng. trans., The Duel). Louis-Sebastien Mercier transposed the same formula a class downward into the artisan world in La Brouette du vinaigrier (1775; "The Barrel-load of the Vinegar Merchant"). Both achieved greater fidelity of representation on the stage. But the success of the drame bourgeois was short-lived, perhaps because it attempted the incompatible aims of being true to life and inculcating idealistic attitudes. Poetry The emphasis upon reason, science, and philosophy may explain the absence of great poetry in the 18th century. The best verse is that of Voltaire, whose chief claim to renown during most of his lifetime was as a poet. In epic, mock-epic, philosophical poems, or witty society pieces he was preeminent; but to the modern critic the lyrical effusion or linguistic intensity that might indicate genius seem to be missing. The novel The success of the novel is a more positive story. Despite official opposition and occasional censorship, the new genre developed apace. The first great 18th-century exemplar is now seen to be Robert Challes, whose Illustres francaises (1713), a collection of seven tales intertwined, commands ever greater attention for its serious realism and disabused candour anticipating Stendhal. As the bourgeois spirit acquired a more prominent place in society, the roman de moeurs became important, most notably in the novels of Alain-Rene Lesage: Le Diable boiteux (1707; The Devil upon Two Sticks) and more especially L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (1715-35; The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane). The latter, a loose-knit picaresque novel, recounts its hero's rise in society and concomitant moral education, set against a comprehensive picture of the surrounding world. Characterization and sensibility receive greater attention in the novels of the Abbe Prevost, whose reputation has become more broadly based with the publication (beginning in 1969) of his complete works. He is best known, however, as the author of the Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731), an ambiguous mixture of disinterested passion and shabby criminality in which des Grieux, a young scapegrace but also a man of the most exquisite sentiments, sacrifices himself to the amoral, delicate, and forever enigmatic Manon. In this tragic tale love conquers all, but it constantly needs vulgar money to sustain it. Tears and swoonings abound, as do precise notations of financial costs. This blend of traditional romance and sordid realism, never quite one or the other, combines with the ambivalent characterization of the chevalier to create a masterpiece. By contrast, Marivaux as novelist devoted his main energies to psychological analysis and the moral life of his characters. His two great narratives, La Vie de Marianne (1731-41) and Le Paysan parvenu (1734-35; "The Fortunate Peasant"), follow one single character recounting, as in Manon Lescaut, his past experience. But unlike the tone of Manon Lescaut, the comic note prevails in Marivaux's novels as Marianne and Jacob make their way upward in society. Reflection upon conduct becomes more important than conduct itself; the narrator, now of mature years, comments and endlessly interprets his actions when young and still in transit socially. The result provides a rich density of feelings, meticulously analyzed or finely suggested. Both protagonists are morally equivocal, born survivors with an eye for the main chance, yet they also are attractive because they reveal themselves so disarmingly and because they are capable of disinterested and honourable actions. What abides, however, is the portrait of one particular consciousness, unceasingly informative on the mysteries of the human mind and heart. Rousseau The preeminent name associated with the sensibility of the age is that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He promoted the cult of nature, lakes, mountains, and gardens, in contrast to the false glitter of cultured society. He called for a new way of life attentive above all to man's innate sense of pity rather than dependent upon meretricious reasoning; espoused untutored simplicity and the true equality of all because all men share a capacity for feeling; and aimed at total sincerity in his confessional writings and thereby gave birth to the modern autobiography. Thus he stands as one of the greatest thinkers of his time, alongside, and generally in opposition to, Voltaire. He established the modern novel of sensibility with the resounding success of his Julie: ou La Nouvelle Helose (1761), a novel about an impossible, doomed love. He composed an indispensable classic of educational theory with Emile: ou De l'education (1762), which traces the program of an ideal education from birth to marriage. The hero, brought up away from corrupting society, becomes a truly moral person, in keeping with the principles of natural man. Rousseau stresses the importance of feeling and spontaneity of action over purely theoretical doctrine; religious sensibility is an essential element of Emile's makeup. The sharp hostility toward contemporary society already evident in his Discours sur les sciences et les arts (1750) is more profoundly elaborated in the Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inegalite parmi les hommes, sometimes called the Second Discours (1755). Social inequality has come about because men have allowed their God-given right of freedom to be usurped. Our elegant, civilized society is a sham, whose reality is endless posturing, hostility, injustice, enslavement, and alienation. The possibly revolutionary implications are to some extent spelled out in the Contrat social (1762; A Treatise on the Social Contract). Liberty and equality can be reestablished, according to Rousseau, by a new social pact of all with all, willingly accepted, obeying the volonte generale ("general will"), which alone has total sovereignty. In this way passive subjects of the state will be turned into active citizens zealous for the public good. But this act will require a moral transmutation, whereby men use their reason properly, in the exercise of selfless virtue; this emphasis on reason is underlined by the highly abstract character of the work. Commentators have differed widely in their readings of the Contrat social as a liberal or totalitarian document, but Rousseau at least saw himself as unambiguously defending freedom. Rousseau's struggle toward a morality based on transparent honesty is continued in the Confessions (written 1765-70), where he seeks self-knowledge through awareness of the unconscious, the importance of childhood in shaping the man, and the role of sexuality; in so doing he anticipates modern psychoanalysis. This original exploration of the self is developed further in the Reveries du promeneur solitaire (written 1776-78; Reveries of a Solitary Walker), which has been seen as foreshadowing even more strongly the Romantic movement and the literature of introspection of the next century. Laclos and others The later 18th-century novel is dominated by the figure of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos and his masterpiece Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782; Dangerous Acquaintances), which gives a skillful account of erotic psychology as the libertine Valmont and his accomplice Mme de Merteuil plot the downfall of their victims. The tragic development is set in a Parisian society illustrating Rousseau's strictures: naturalness has given way to conformist expediency and cynicism, and the opportunity for spontaneous love has been lost. Laclos's novel delineates the void left in this heartless world; yet he also praises intelligence, which the highly crafted construction of the work brilliantly exemplifies. The detachment afforded by the structure of this epistolary novel precludes an assured understanding of the authorial viewpoint, and it has proved possible to interpret the work variously as an appeal to sensibility or as an exercise in pure cynicism. The ambiguity abides, preserving the novel's place among the classics of the genre. By contrast, Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's Paul et Virginie (1788) often seems over-sentimental to modern tastes. It remains nonetheless a rich evocation of exotic nature in the tropical setting of Mauritius. Nicolas-Edme Restif (called Restif de la Bretonne) wrote at great length about the Parisian society, often criminal and equivocal, in which he moved. Given to verbosity, he yet evoked vividly the low world around him. More disturbing is the Marquis de Sade, whose search for maximum intensity of physical sensation, particularly in deriving pleasure through the infliction of pain, gave rise to the word sadism. According to Sade, because nature is engaged in destruction as in procreation, murder is natural and morally acceptable. The true libertine must replace soft sentiment by an energy aspiring to total freedom. Sade's insistence upon experimental rationalism owes much to the Enlightenment, of which his antisocial egoism is, however, only a perverted expression. But in works like Justine, ou les malheurs de la vertu (1791; Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue) he made the reader aware as never before that the search for fulfillment via the enjoyment of cruelty forms part of the human psyche. |