Considerations on France
Author | Joseph de Maistre |
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Original title | Considérations sur la France |
Language | French |
Genre | Political philosophy · Social criticism · Culture war |
Publication date | 1796 |
Publication place | France |
Pages | 250 |
Part of a series on |
Conservatism in the Western world |
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This article is part of Conservatism in France |
Considerations on France (
Thesis
Maistre claimed that France had a divine mission as the principal instrument of
Reception
Maistre's political pamphlet quickly established his European reputation as a formidable defendant of throne and altar.[3] The pretender to the throne of France, the future king Louis XVIII, sent Maistre his greetings upon the publication.[4] To honour Maistre for his work, Napoleon made him French against his will in 1802.[5]
The circumstances at the time of its publication in 1796 meant that Maistre's call for a restoration of the monarchy remained unanswered. But in 1814, when his program was implemented, Maistre would be regarded as a prophet. The prominent French author Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, who was an admirer of Maistre, spoke of a "delayed explosion" and compared it to a cannonball shot with an unusually long interval between the flash and the boom.[6]
Style
The work has received much attention for its stylistic qualities.[7] The prominent literary critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve called it a 'sublime pamphlet.'[8] Scholar of Romanticism Charles L. Lombard characterized it as primarily a creative work, filled with paradox and drama.[9] French historian Jean-Louis Darcel suggested that the most seductive aspect of the work was its tone:
The sparkle of the visionary, a prophetic tone, and in its best pages, an apocalyptic lyricism linking up with the scriptural origins of Judeo-Christian civilization, this is what seemed new, what struck the first readers.[10]
Historian of ideas Carolina Armenteros, who has written four works on Maistre, characterized the prose style as follows:
The Considérations sur la France (1797) uses the ancient technique of deinôsis, a Greek term signifying the religious horror that mortals experience in the presence of a terrifying divinity. The imprecations, vociferations and vituperations of his style are so many codes of his anti-modernity.[11]
According to French historian Pierre Glaudes, Maistre's appropriation of Burke's notion of the sublime provided him with both an interpretive key for understanding the Revolution and a new rhetoric for elucidating and imposing its transcendent meaning.[12] In this way, politics and æsthetics are portrayed as intimately bound together.[13]
References
- ISBN 978-1-907548-00-0.
- ^ Lebrun, Richard (1967). "Joseph de Maistre, how Catholic a Reaction?," CCHA Study Sessions, Vol. 34, pp. 29–45.
- ISBN 978-1-907548-00-0.
- OCLC 985104734.
- ISBN 978-1-907548-00-0.
- OCLC 985104734.
- ISBN 978-1-907548-00-0.
- ^ Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin. Les grands écrivains français: XIXe siècle: Philosophes et essayistes. p. 286.
- ISBN 0-8057-6247-7.
- ^ Darcel, Jean-Louis (1980). "Introduction". Considérations sur la France. p. 19.
- ISBN 978-1-907548-00-0.
- ^ Glaudes, Pierre (2004). "Maistre et le sublime de la Révolution. Enjeux d'une conversion esthétique". Revue des études maistriennes. Vol. 14. St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture. pp. 183–200.
- ISBN 978-1-907548-00-0.
External links
- Quotations related to Considerations on France at Wikiquote
- French Wikisource has original text related to this article: Considérations sur la France