George Sand’s Thought in 1833
- George Sand’s Thought in 1833
Maître de Conférences, University of Lille; Visiting Professor of French, University College, University of Toronto, 1955. M. Reboul’s article was translated by Professors Eugène Joliat and Robert Finch, both of University College, University of Toronto
Footnotes
* On the genesis of Lélia, cf. the Appendix. I am using as my sole authority the text of 1833, infinitely more rewarding than that of 1839. Perhaps it is not superfluous at this point to give a résumé of the content of Lilia (1833). The Undertaking is, however, a difficult one, since Lélia, at times a lyrical narrative, at other times a passionate meditation, is not—to use Jean Prévost’s definition of a novel—“une histoire qu’on raconte.” The poet Sténio, symbolizing youth, loves Lélia, a brilliant but cold woman with a tortured soul who, as a result of unhappy experiences, has decided to love no more since love, for her, is impossible. Lélia is on friendly terms with a former convict, Trenmor, an inveterate gambler, once imprisoned for larceny, now a perfect sage (the symbol of maturity). She inspires irresistible desires in the Irish monk, Magnus, a childlike person who is both mystical and sensual. Finally, Lélia undertakes to love Sténio, but, ever frigid, leaves him to her sister Pulchérie, a courtesan. At this point, Sténio gives himself over to debauchery, Lélia turns to meditation, Magnus goes back to the life of a recluse. Trenmor tears Sténio away from the suicidal path he is taking and promises to bring Lélia back to him. But Sténio kills himself, and as Lélia mourns over his dead body she is strangled by Magnus. All’s well that ends ill: exit Trenmor, still the perfect sage. … The interest of the work lies less in this résumé, which is in any case symbolic, than in an interplay of ideas relative to God, death, love, society, in remarkable psychological analyses, and in the crudity of certain scenes that are terribly true to life. The version of 1839 constitutes another novel entirely; preachy and well-intentioned, its interest is merely historical.
NOTES
1. Preface of the first edition of the Secrétaire Intime. Sand was careful not to reproduce this text in her Complete Works. Having recognized that the majority of men owe their bliss to moral blindness, she asks: “Cannot poetry reach beyond the limits of humdrum felicity and dogged credulity? Has it not the right to take as the subject of its investigations the exceptional sufferers who go from disillusionment to despair, from despair to doubt, from doubt to irony, from irony to pity, and from pity to serene and impassive resignation, to a scrupulous disdain of everything that is neither God nor Thought?” Lélia is a striving after lucidity.
2. We need not; the work contains a definite set of ideas, which are, after all, sincere.
3. Sténio: the name brings to mind an idea of strength (in the original edition, Trenmor pays a tribute to Sténio and considers him as most advanced along the path of righteousness); lelia is the feminine of Musset’s Lélio; trenmor: did this name, in Sand’s mind, suggest something Irish? (Magnus, in the same novel, is an Irish monk.) The name brings to mind Thomas Moore, the man and his writings.
4. She wrote a criticism of Obermann in the Revue des Deux Mondes of June 30, 1833. Regarding Nodier, cf. the Appendix (B).
5. She was contemptuous about Nodier the novelist and short-story writer. However, since she had great esteem for him as a thinker, she was drawn to taking up those of his subjects which suited her. There are close resemblances between her André and Nodier’s Adèle, for example. The article entitled “De l’amour” is in the 1832 edition of Nodier’s Works.
6. Lélia mentions the Imitation as being among those texts she loved to read in solitude.
7. Cf. the following fine unpublished sentence from a letter to Michel de Bourges (Copy: Lovenjoul...
