Les 'salons' de Sainte-Beuve. Le critique et ses muses (review)

THE COMPAKATIST artistic changes to modernism as a distinct form nor does he bring the tripartite grid ofmodemist imperatives, which had yielded such fruitful results in earlier portraits, fully to bear here. The volume ends rather abruptly with the Celan chapter without a final chapter underscoring or explicitly linking the arguments so cogently advanced throughout the preceding chapters. This "shortcoming" admittedly enticed me to provide the links—a result that would certainly be in keeping with Bernstein 's intellectually engaging and invigorating project. This is a book designed for a wide range of readers. It is accessible on a fundamental level because Bernstein provides both a translation and the original German for all the texts he cites. Bernstein also successfully bridges the (ever widening?) gap between the general reader and the academic specialist. It is scholarly investigation ofthe highest order. Bernstein's book fulfills its own imperatives and may indeed usher in a new era ofthe literary-intellectual portrait. Linda Kraus WorleyUniversity ofKentucky ROXANA M. VERONA. Les 'salons' de Sainte-Beuve. Le critique et ses muses. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999. 228pp. In the history ofrecent French criticism, Sainte-Beuve is an unavoidable though somewhat unwelcome presence. The reasons for this ambivalence vary. For Proust, Sainte-Beuve's trademark "life-and-works" approach to criticism constituted the obstacle to overcome on the way to his masterpieceA la recherche du tempsperdu. One could even argue that Proust meant his novel to render Sainte-Beuve's method of reading inoperable. More recently, however, Roberto Calasso (in The Ruin of Kasch) argued that Sainte-Beuve's writings are the most misunderstood and underappreciated corpus in the history ofnineteenth-century French literature. Roxana M. Verona's fresh look at Sainte-Beuve offers some insight into what in his writing might be responsible for the wild fluctuations in his reputation. Readers ofVerona's study might be puzzled by the fact that the title places "salons" in quotation marks. Far from being a typographic licence, these quotation marks indicate the direction ofthe author's argument. Sainte-Beuve's opponents commonly accuse him of replacing inquiry into the literary works themselves with a bricolage of anecdotal clues from authors' biographies. Countering this charge, Verona argues that far from being a shortcoming ofhis method, it is Sainte-Beuve's ability to transfer the vivaciousness of the real-life salons into the medium of written presentation that constitutes his singular achievement. She defines SainteBeuve 's salons as "un espace textuel formé par la coprésence de plusieurs plans: historique et social (les salons mondains), esthétique (le débat classique/romantique ), et poétique (les genres proches de l'oral)." By means ofthis definition, she is able to detach Sainte-Beuve's writing from the status ofthe mere transcription of rumors and to envision it as a critical space that employs the much maligned causerie as one of its masks. Rather than going along with the idea that SainteBeuve 's attention to external circumstance contaminates the purity of criticism, Verona argues that since criticism is inevitably impure and mixed, Sainte-Beuve's approach unfolds an uncensored possibility ofcriticism. Having shown how the heterogeneity ofSainte-Beuve's writing can be transformed into its strength in the opening chapter, Verona invites the reader to revisit "forgotten" texts of Sainte-Beuve with this renewed appreciation ofhis achieveVcH . 26 (2002): 179 BOOK NOTES ment in mind. Accordingly, in a first part entitled "Les salons de l'écriture," the author emphasizes conversation as the formative figure ofSainte-Beuve's writing. In a close analysis ofhis early work Vie, Poésie et Pensées de Joseph Delorme, Verona shows how even as Sainte-Beuve aspired to assure for himselfthe place of the author, the rhythms of conversation and oral debate pervert and frustrate his dream of canonicity. The failure ofJoseph Delorme would lead Sainte-Beuve to abandon this dream and forge a different future for himself. An instance ofmarginalization himself, in his critical phase Sainte-Beuve is particularly attracted to marginal cases and genres. It is this attraction that led him to devote many ofhis Portraits to women writers and salonières. Writing about women that were famous for their conversation such as la Princesse Mathilde...