Chateaubriand et la vanité: varietas ou pari pascalien?
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Date
2018
Journal Title
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Abstract
Chateaubriand a produit une oeuvre paradoxale : il fut accusé de vanité bien
qu ’il ait combattu sans relâche la vanité ; il employa le terme de vanité sous toutes
ses acceptions, cela contrairement à ses contemporains ou ses prédécesseurs, Retz
et Rousseau. D ’où ces questions : doit-on réduire son oeuvre à une vaine ποικιλíα,
un exercice de rhétorique égocentrique procédant du miroitement et de la profusion,
ou doit-on considérer son auteur comme un moraliste, continuateur de Pascal et donc
un « monstre incompréhensible » à son siècle ?
Chateaubriand ’s work is a paradox: he was accused of being vain although he endlessly fought against vanity ; he used all the meanings of the word vanity, this, contrary to contemporaneous writers or predecessors like Rousseau and Retz. Hence these questions: Should we reduce his work to a vain and egocentric rhetorical exercise full of brilliance and profusion, varietas, or should we consider its author as the heir of a moralist like Pascal and therefore an “incomprehensible monster” during his century.
Chateaubriand ’s work is a paradox: he was accused of being vain although he endlessly fought against vanity ; he used all the meanings of the word vanity, this, contrary to contemporaneous writers or predecessors like Rousseau and Retz. Hence these questions: Should we reduce his work to a vain and egocentric rhetorical exercise full of brilliance and profusion, varietas, or should we consider its author as the heir of a moralist like Pascal and therefore an “incomprehensible monster” during his century.
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Keywords
vanité, La Rochefoucauld, Pascal, Montaigne, Rousseau, Retz, vanity
Citation
"Quêtes littéraires" 2018, nº 8, s. 64-75