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Nerval and Rousseau
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
We have long since rejected the idea that Madame de Staël brought romanticism to France from Germany. We are also quite aware, in spite of Lasserre and Irving Babbitt, that there is a great deal in romanticism that is not in Rousseau, and a great deal in Rousseau that is not in romanticism. It now remains for us to look for some truth between these extremes. Categorical answers to questions regarding Rousseau's influence on this period in literary history will probably never be found, but esthetic insights into the matter may be gained by a study of the relationships between Jean-Jacques and the outstanding poets of the movement.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1953
References
1 Paris: Magen, 1845, p. 14.
2 Unless otherwise indicated all references to Nerval's works are taken from the Henri Clouard edition, 10 vols. (Le Divan, 1927-28). In addition to the Roman à faire, this edition presents the Gautier-Houssaye and the Victorien Sardou versions of the Lettres à Aurélia as sources of Aurélia. We shall abbreviate the references to these versions as follows: Roman à faire, Rf; Gautier-Houssaye version, G-H; Sardou version, S. The numbering of the letters corresponds to the order in which M. Clouard has presented them. [References to Rousseau's Nouvelle Séloïse indicate the part and the letter by a roman numeral and by an arabic numeral respectively.]
3 This letter was reproduced as part of Octavie in La Sylphide, the same review which a few months earlier had printed the Roman à faire.
4 In this letter Saint-Preux writes to Julie: “Par pitié ne m'abandonnez pas à moi-même; daignez au moins disposer de mon sort; dites quelle est votre volonté. Quoique vous puissiez me prescrire, je ne saurai qu'obéir. M'imposez-vous un silence éternel? je saurai me contraindre à le garder. Me bannissez-vous de votre présence? Je jure que vous ne me verrez plus. M'ordonnez-vous de mourir? Ah! ce ne sera pas le plus difficile.”
5 Nerval has a short memory when in the same sentence he adds, “qu'il ne connaissait, il est vrai, que depuis son séjour à l'Université de Rennes” (p. 128).
6 In his preface to André Martín-Decaen, Le Marquis René de Girardin (1735-1808) d'après ses papiers inédits (Paris: Perrin, 1912).
7 J. Boulenger, Au pays de Gérard de Nerval (Paris: Champion, 1914), p. 120.
8 With the exception of the Vieilles Ballades françaises, a collection of traditional songs published in La Sylphide in 1842. These ballads, which were added to Sylvie in 1854, were the beginnings of a great collection of national folksongs later undertaken by musicologists.
9 This plan may be found in the pages of Le National in the Bibliothèque Nationale or in the Michel-Lévy edition of Nerval's works, where it is reproduced as part of Angélique, pp. 403-406.
10 Paris: Treuttel et Würtz, 1820, i, 96-97.
11 1827 ed., p. 433.
12 Le Préromantisme (Grenoble: Arthaud, 1930), ii, 285-355.
13 Ibid, p. 334.
14 The quotation was probably made from memory. Rousseau's exact words were: “… Jamais fille chaste n'a lu de romans… . Celle qui, malgré ce titre, en osera lire une seule page, est une fille perdue: mais qu'elle n'impute point sa perte à ce livre; le mal était fait d'avance.” (La Nouvelle Héloïse, Mornet ed., ii, 3-4.)
15 Later in Aurélia (i, ix) when he thinks he is dying, Gérard rushes outside in order to see the sun before his final moment, then adds, “… je me sentais heureux de mourir ainsi.”
16 Jean-Jacques saw this flower first with Mme de Warens. Almost thirty years later, when on a walk with M. du Peyrou, he immediately recognized it, although he claims not to have seen it once in the interim. This anecdote, intended to show the strength of the happy impressions left on him by his stay at Les Charmettes, was illustrated by Chasselat in many of the early editions of the Confessions.
17 A. Retté, “Gérard de Nerval,” Mercure de France, li, (15 March 1905), 204-217. Retté seems to have been struck by the resemblance, but all he does is note it in a vague way: “S'il a procédé de quelqu'un c'est certainement de Rousseau” (p. 207).
18 Cf. Lettre à Stadler (1852). Correspondance, ed. Marsan, pp. 181-183.
19 L'Ame romantique et le rêve (Paris: Corti, 1946), pp. 327-404.
20 Histoire du romantisme (Paris: Carpentier, 1874), p. 71.
21 His critical ed. of the Rêveries d'un promeneur solitaire (Genève et Lille, 1948), p. xxiv.
22 “Paradoxe et vérité,” L'Artiste, 2 June 1844, p. 71.
23 “Quintus Aucler,” Les Illuminés, i, 455-456.
24 This MS., when Nerval discovered it in 1849, was the property of Louis-N. de Cayrol, librarian of Compiègne. Cf. Les Filles du Feu: Angélique. Texte établi et annoté par Nicolas I. Popa (Paris: Champion, 1931) i, 55 and note, ii, 178-179. The MS. was purchased 21 April 1948 by a Mr. Ronald Davis, bookseller, according to J. Sénelier, Bibliographie générale des œuvres de J.-J. Rousseau (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1950) item 36, p. 37. The first song of this collection, quoted by Gérard in Angélique, is in the Consolations des misères de ma vie (Paris: chez De Roullède, 1781).
25 Petits châteaux de Bohème, ed. Champion, pp. 279-280.