Five French Critics

When I met with Rita Felski some months ago on the sunny grounds of the University of Virginia in the ever-busy hall of Alderman Library, and she asked me to write a short presentation for a forthcoming issue of New Literary History hosting several contemporary French critics and scholars of literature, I gave myself no time to think twice, probably suspecting that any second thoughts would have deterred me from such a venture. There was at least one good reason to accept the invitation and to ignore the foreseeable difficulties of the exercise. After more than fifteen years directing the French journal Critique, founded in 1946 by Georges Bataille, I have grown more and more convinced that journals—or revues—and more particularly literary journals are probably the closest thing we have left to what used to be the Republic of Letters. Had I been invited as a scholar of French literature—which I also am on other days—to introduce this anthology of French critical texts, I would most probably have declined the honor as too perilous as well as undeserved. Coming from a fellow editor, however, this was an offer I could hardly refuse.

To be honest, there was also an element of excitement in that hasty decision. The special issue was still in its exploratory stage and the list of potential French contributors very much tentative. We had a mutual agreement that I would play no part in the process of selection. This is how I signed up for five blind dates with French authors. But then I have always liked blind dates—the expression, that is, ever since I first met it with perplexity, at an early stage of my acquaintance with the English language, in Nabokov's Pale Fire.

Now that the cards have been dealt, let us see our hand. I think it is a pretty good one.

During the past decade, Marielle Macé has emerged as a remarkable new voice on the French theoretical scene—a voice that has already been heard on several American campuses, from Columbia to New York University and from Chicago to Charlottesville. Her work exemplifies a new ability, typical of her generation, to reconcile institutional excellence and intellectual singularity; immersion in the French intellectual debate and international openness; carefully crafted writing (manifest in her books as well as her articles) and uninhibited ventures in Web Land (she was a cofounder of the successful French literary website Fabula). Her first book on the essay in twentieth-century France has become a reference book on the topic. Her more recent book on literature as a stylization of existence has been praised by both academics and journalists. I should also mention the special issue of Critique entitled "Du Style!" (note the exclamation mark!) which she inspired and directed, a strong manifesto praising the role of literature in allowing us to live meaningfully—and stylishly. Marielle Macé is a nondogmatic reader who finds comfort in a close contact with literary works. Although Gérard Genette or Thomas Pavel are among her intellectual beacons, fiction is not her primary focus. She is more attracted to poetry and, above all, to "prose for thought" and the essay as a literary vehicle for cognitive experiences. While she enjoys direct engagement with literary works, there is also ample evidence of her interest in theoretical thinking.

Delineating different "phases" in a career still in its prime may sound a bit artificial. Two major threads, however, can be followed in her writing. Her first published works clearly reflected an epistemological rapprochement of literary history and critical theory, in a spirit typical of the 90s. Her recent publications adopt a more phenomenological approach, without taking leave of history, politics, or ethics, another core element in her intellectual project. Devoted to Sartre, the central and longest chapter in her recent book—indeed, almost an essay within an essay—is a fine illustration of her take on literature.

Dates indicate that Pierre Bayard was born almost twenty years earlier than Marielle Macé. However, we know better than to confuse generations as defined by demographers and intellectual generations. Undeniably...