Karl Philipp Moritz: At the Fringe of Genius by Mark Boulby (review)

150 LEITERS IN CANADA 1980 La troisieme partie etablit Ie modele constitutionnel du journal fictif pour en eprouver ensuite Ie fonctionnement II partir d'un exemple archetypal, Eva ou Ie journal interrompu de Jacques Chardonne, et en determiner enfin Ie jeudes variantes. Les fonctions nominative, accusative et dative, diversifiees dans Ie roman, se fixent dans Ie journal fictif sur la seule personne du narrateur. Celui-ci remplit les divers roles du schema actantiel, II I'exception de celui d'adjuvant dont la fonction ablative est assuree par Ie journallui-meme. Les postes du triangle flexionnel ainsi obtenu sont en rapport d'homologie avec les instances temporelles (voir ci-dessus) qui, II leur tour, correspondent aux modalisations de la voix grammaticale. 'The "voice" category is related to the "writing" aspect of the journal, since this activity records the past self (passive), transforms the narrator self (middle), and produces a text (active) which the future self may read' (p 73). Cette structure triplement triangulaire (cas, temps, voix), de caractere intradiegetique, vient se superposer II la structure extradiegetique - auteur, personnage, leeteur - pour former une figure pyramidale complexe (p 74) qui simule par Ie jeu de ses elements geometriques les relations constitutives du journal fictif. D'une fa~on generale, Ie merite de l'auteur dans cet ouvrage est d'abord de proposer II notre reflexion un objet romanesque dont les caracteres generiques ont ete jusqu'll maintenant peu Hudies, ensuite de presenter de cet objet une description precise et souvent seduisante qui demontre de serieuses qualites de synthese. Mais pourquoi ne pas inclure dans Ie corpus de reference des textes du 18' siecle qui auraient pu enrichir I'analyse, tels La Religieuse dont la 'technique batarde: aux dires de G. May (Diderot et 'La Religieuse: 1954, p 215), est 'celie du journal intime subrepticement greffe sur des memoires'? On peut estimer d'autre part que la figure du lecteur est un concept methodologique encore trop peu rigoureux pour servir de piller II l'analyse. L'objection toutefois depasse Ie cadre de l'ouvrage et s'adresse plus generalement II la theorie toujours embryonnaire de la reception. (ROLAND LE HUENEN) Mark Boulby. Karl Philipp Moritz: At the Fringe of Genius University of Toronto Press 1979. xii, )08. $20.00 It will come as a surprise to English-speaking readers that a list of the '100 Books of World Literature' rather solemnly selected in 1979 by a jury of German critics and published in the weekly Die Zeit (Hamburg) included the novel Anton Reiser by Karl Philipp Moritz (1756-93). What on earth, baffled anglophones may ask, is the name of Moritz doing among the Dantes and the Dostoevskis, the Virgils and the Voltaires, of 'World Literature'? And yet, even if eyebrows may be raised about his being listed among the illustrious 100, a case can be made (from the German point of view) for the choice, or at least, as Dr Boulby more modestly argues, for Moritz's deserving to be known outside Germany. For only one of his works has been translated into English, his Journeys ofaGerman in England in 1782, which enjoyed a vogue in England from 1795 onward, and of which a new English edition was prepared as late as 1965. It was precisely this travelogue, alongside Anton Reiser (1785- 90), which first drew Goethe's attention to his friend to be. In some ways Moritz's enduring fame within German letters rests on two pillars: on Goethe's friendship and esteemand on Anton Reiser. What Boulby attempts to do in his carefully researched and closely reasoned study of Moritz's life and works (and Boulby is remarkably successful in achieving that elusive synthesis of critical approaches - biographical, historical, aesthetic, philosophical, and psychological facets of his topic are nicely fused into a coherent whole) is to add a third reason for our according Moritz the international recognition he deserves: that he was 'ahead of his time, a harbinger of the future' (p xii). Though fIrmly rooted in the empiricism of the Enlightenment, Moritz's cast of mind, in part engendered by the cruel misfortunes he had to endure because of his poverty, iowly social status, and physical and mental ill health...