Le Lyrisme démocratique ou la naissance de l’éloquence romantique chez Lamartine 1834–1849 by Dominique Dupart (review)

Few books announce their subject more completely in their title than does this one: Lamartine’s evolution from poet celebrating a personal subjectivity to politician engaging the emotional adhesion of increasingly popular audiences. At the same time, few books suggest the difficulty of their reading in their title alone: each component—lyricism, democracy, beginning(s), eloquence, romanticism, 1834–1849—requires unpacking. In Le Lyrisme démocratique ou la naissance de l’éloquence romantique chez Lamartine 1834–1849 Dominique Dupart explicates each of these elements and their varying combinations in prose that often mirrors Lamartine’s oratorical style: rich in affirmation, elaboration and reiteration.

Lamartine’s mastery of the art of public discourse made him one of the most influential figures of his time, yet his eloquence has not received much scholarly attention, for reasons that Dupart takes care to explain. During the early decades of the nineteenth century, legislation arose from deliberation in the Chambre des Députés and therefore depended on verbal argumentation. During the same period, the development of journalism gave rise to intensified questioning, debate and contestation of the persuasive powers of the spoken word; as a member of the Chambre, Lamartine’s every speech was reported, analyzed and often harshly critiqued in the press by editors, politicians (Tocqueville, Veuillot, Guizot) and writers (Balzac, Flaubert, Sainte-Beuve) for its effectiveness or lack thereof. When Lamartine suffered defeat in the presidential election of 1848, a permanent shadow was cast retrospectively on the performative nature of all his speech acts. Compensative efforts on his behalf through publication of incomplete or revisionist versions of selected discourses further compromised his reputation as orator. Motivated, not hindered, by these challenges, Dominique Dupart sets out to confirm Lamartine’s status as a skilled public speaker, a task in which she is highly successful.

Her study of Lamartine consists of five chronologically-overlapping sections. Part 1, L’éloquence romantique de Lamartine, evokes the France of 1830 and its parallel preoccupations with the sublime and with modes of political representation, examines the influential presence of the press and defines the role of governmental debate under France’s constitutional monarchy. Part two, L’avenir du lyrisme, 1830–1849, demonstrates how Lamartine integrates poetry and politics, verse and eloquence in Jocelyn, Les Destinées de la poésie, Raphaël and his two Discours sur l’Orient of 1834. Part three, L’éloquence populaire, 1834–1837, explores Lamartine’s redefinition of his role as delegate in the Chambre des Députés from that of representing a specific constituency into that of voicing concerns for all French citizens; it also shows how the major periodicals of the time expanded upon Lamartine’s idealistic populism. Part four, La Représentation lyrique, 1835–1846, follows Lamartine’s increasingly liberal adoption of the point of view of the masses and his appeals for the abolition of slavery. Part five, Lamartine Pater Patriae 1839–1848, relates how Lamartine embraced the role of spokesperson for all of France and substituted a rhetoric of persuasion for one of proclamation. This new ideology of government by acclamation secured Lamartine’s elevation to iconic status; it also sealed his downfall in democratic processes of election in 1848.

Within this trajectory, Lamartine’s eloquence was not always at the service of republicanism; contradictions appear, especially in speeches that were improvised, composed for ad hoc purposes or spontaneously engendered by the give and take of parliamentary debate. Dupart does not aim to be comprehensive in her overview of Lamartine’s career as public speaker; her method is to select exemplary speeches on certain key topics—among them economics, foreign policy, humanitarian issues and the press; reproduce extensive excerpts from them; then reread them, exhibiting a verbal virtuosity of her own in her commentaries on them. Throughout, she seeks out the links between eloquence and sentiment...