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Nineteenth Century French Studies 31.1&2 (2002) 176-178



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Book Review

Cahier Romantique #6:
Michelet entre naissance et renaissance (1798-1998)


Cahier Romantique #6: Michelet entre naissance et renaissance (1798-1998). Ed. Simone Bernard-Griffiths. Presses Universitaires-Blaise Pascal, 2001. Pp. 374. ISBN 2-84516-155-7

The volume under review collects papers from a 1998 colloquium celebrating the 200th anniversary of Jules Michelet's birth. Simone Bernard-Griffith's introduction considers the event, and its published outcome, as "l'occasion de cerner la place qu'un écrivain occupe dans la mémoire collective et de prendre conscience des modifications qui, au fil du temps, interviennent dans l'image que l'on se fait de lui" (5). Michelet as mediator - between the past and the present, Western European culture and Slavic culture, German literature and French history, the East and the West, and intellectuals and the general public - is a rubric fitting many contributions to the anthology. Related essays consider ecological and spiritual concerns in Michelet's works, while others re-read Michelet's correspondence, seminal works, and manuscript drafts. Divided into three categories ("Nature et Histoire," "Michelet et les autres," and "Les Écritures de l'Histoire"), the essays connect the study of Michelet with contemporary concerns regarding interdisciplinarity and internationalism. As a whole, these essays significantly supplement earlier scholarship and criticism on Michelet and effectively [End Page 176] complement other recent assessments such as a peer volume collecting papers deliv-ered in honor of the two-hundredth anniversary (Colloque Michelet, ed. Laurence Richer, Paris, 1999).

Although the book is scholarly, many contributions, particularly those in the first part concerning the topic of nature, can profitably engage general readers interested in nineteenth-century texts and contexts. Essays by Ceri Crossley, Oscar Haac, and Edward Kaplan respectively develop the animal as topic in Michelet's works and nineteenth-century vegetarianism, an historical and textual study of La Mer, and ecological religion as a unifying interest of Michelet's histories. Rounding out this section on nature and history, considerations of the heroic in L'Oiseau and revolution in La Montagne (by Claude Rétat and Pierre Laforgue) explicate how Michelet's historical study of nature reflects particular historiographical principles; as Laforgue writes, "C'est moins en fait d'une transposition de l'Histoire à l'histoire naturelle qu'il s'agit que du reflet de l'Histoire dans l'histoire naturelle" (120).

The second section, "Michelet et les autres," focuses on the man and his work in relation to his contemporaries. Michel Cadot's essay on Michelet's relationships with Polish, Russian, and Romanian figures and Christian Croisille's on Michelet's correspondence reflect on the historian's personality and philosophical attitudes. While Irène Tieder's essay surveys Michelet's references to German writers, spec-ulating about allusions to the Germans in his writings, Kazumichi Oono, the Japanese translator of many of his works, describes Michelet's reception in Japan. Noting Michelet's familiarity with writings of philosophers (Kant, Schlegel, Fichte, Schelling), poets (Goethe, Rückert), playwrights (Schiller), and theologians (Luther), Tieder briefly sketches points of contact. Oono traces the publication history of Michelet's works in Japan and ends her essay linking his ideas to Eastern philosophies: "En s'efforçant de dépasser ces dogmes anciens, Michelet a découvert sa 'cité de Dieu' aboutissant, à mon avis, à établir un pont entre la pensée orientale ou bouddhique et la pensée moderne et occidentale" (173). Rémy Rioux traces the personal and professional relationship between Michelet and Gabriel Monod, establishing how the former's work help to construct the latter's.

"Les Écritures de l'Histoire," the final section of the volume, groups essays tracing certain historical topics in his œuvre and considering the public role of Michelet, his reception in his own time, and what his work means to ours. Among the essays offering thematic historiographical analyses are Chaâbane Harbaoui's "Temps calendaire et temps légendaires dans l'Histoire de la Révolution française," Franck Laurent's "Errance et Nation dans l'Histoire de...

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