Voltaire's Tormented Soul: A Psychobiographic Inquiry by Alexander J. Nemeth (review)

Book Reviews199 terms ofthe significant work ofothers that preceded it, particularly texts that fall outside the scope of literary studies strictly speaking, as Lescart's own interdisciplinary investigation does. Among many others, particularly relevant would have been the work of art historians such as Beatrice Farwell, including her The Image ofDesire: Femininity, Modernity, and the Birth ofMass Culture in 19' -century France (1994); French Popular Lithographic Imagery, 18151870 (1981-1998); and the work of historians such as Jennifer Jones, for example her 'Coquettes and Grisettes: Women Buying and Selling in Ancien Régime Paris' in The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective (1996). Thinking through these, or the work of Catherine Nesci, whose 2007 Leflâneur et lesflâneuses admittedly was published far too late for consideration in a study that was originally completed in 2005, might have provided Lescart with a methodological focus for a study that now reads more as a (deftly researched) delineation of sequential developments than as an analysis ofthem. Yet perhaps this work of broadening out the discussion falls outside the scope of this individual text and points instead to its usefulness as a tool for students and scholars alike. Lescart's text will certainly prove to be an excellent resource for further scholarship and will undoubtedly be cited as a key resource for years to come. Denise Amy BaxterUniversity of North Texas Nemeth, Alexander J. Voltaire's Tormented Soul: A Psychobiographic Inquiry. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2008. Pp 359. ISBN-13 978-0-934223-92-8. ISBN-10 0-934223-92-0. $80.00 (Cloth). Alexander J. Nemeth's work presents an ambitious psychoanalytic reading of a larger-than-life personality—François Marie Arouet de Voltaire—who became a cultural icon early in his own lifetime. It is a personality study of a prolific "speaker," who, according to this analysis, was never able to speak directly about himself. The book will appeal to readers interested in Voltaire, especially those who know something about the varied events of his life, and are curious about personality issues. We must believe, at least for the time of reading, that personality determines the behavior that forms a life. Along with what the author calls "innate" tendencies, it is early, traumatic life experiences (most often suppressed, deflected, or sublimated) that determine personality. Eighteenth-century and Voltaire specialists should read this study to compare Nemeth's findings with their own. Both a lawyer and a clinical psychologist, Nemeth comes to this genre from outside Voltaire studies. This is his first book. Writing neither as a literary scholar nor as a historian, but as a clinician, he lays out the psychological constructs and categories he knows and applies them to the life of his subject. The book is divided into five major sections: I. Innate Disposition and Mental 200Women in French Studies Power; II. Scars of Early Injuries; III. Motivational Forces; IV. Relationships of Adulthood: Their Dynamics; V. Moral Censor and the Core. Within these sections, each of the fifteen carefully titled chapters has between three and five subheads, providing reference points in the table of contents to help the reader follow Nemeth's arguments. Psychobiography has its practitioners—active teachers, writers, and clinicians—who use it as a pedagogical and diagnostic tool. However, these psychologist-academics do not ask everything of psychobiography. They limit its application to brief analyses or case studies about well-known people, which describe unique life events. By now, in our post-Freudian (which often appear anti-Freudian) times, psychobiography has acquired legions of detractors. Perhaps fortunately, Nemeth has created his own focus. He neither speaks to differences with other practitioners, nor does he defend himself against detractors, but illuminates his subject with the techniques and terminology of his profession. My quibble: The author has compiled his data exclusively from secondary sources (a "body of behavioral information gathered from biographical sources of over two centuries" [246]), rather than through textual analysis. He paints a picture of the man from narratives by others and excerpted translations into English as found in other biographies. We can hardly help but worry about the hearsay or anecdotal factor. We prefer explication from the text. But...