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XXIV. Sainte-Beuve and Pope

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Lander MacClintock
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Extract

It was late in life that Sainte-Beuve wrote to a correspondent:

Je suis resté, malgré tout, de l'école d'Horace, du chantre de la forêt de Windsor, et même en n'y mettant plus de tout de passion, je reste obstiné par ce côté de mon esprit et dans ce for intérieur de mon sentiment.

This declaration is often cited as a sort of summary and synthesis of his critical theory and experience, witnessing his fixed and final preference for the Classical manner, a preference which he promptly and constantly declared after his conclusive break with the Romantics in 1838. The interest of the scholar is immediately aroused by two things in the passage: the fact that he calls the group or roll of writers whom he indicates a “school”; and more especially by the names he singles out as representing the “school” to which he declares his allegiance— Horace and Pope.

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Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , June 1926, pp. 442 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1926

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References

1 Nouvelle Correspondance, p. 235: dated March 29, 1867.

2 Irving Babbitt, Masters of Modern French Criticism (Boston, 1912), p. 168.

3 Ibid., p. 169. See also L. MacClintock, Sainte-Beuve's Critical Theory and Practice after 1849. (Chicago, 1920), p. 69.

4 Nouveaux Lundis, VIII, 104-132.

5 N. L., II, 15.

6 Portraits de Femmes, p. 99; Causeries du Lundi, III, 47; C. L. VII, 327; C. L., IX, 497; N. L., I, 437; N. L., VI, 408; N. L., X, 448.

7 The tradition that Sainte-Beuve knew English well, repeated by most of his critics, has been lately called into question by G. Roth, “Ce que Sainte-Beuve a su d'anglais,” Revue Germanique, 1920-21, pp. 378-381. He concludes: “En dépit des facilités que son ascendance et son lieu de résidence première auraient pu lui procurer, Sainte-Beuve n'apprit l'anglais qu'assez tard et par des moyens probablement livresques; il ne l'a jamais parlé et il ne l'a su que médiocrement.” His admiration for Felicia Hemans (C. L., XI, 118; C. L., XVI, 10) and his bracketing of Kirke White with Keats (Correspondance, II, 44) lend weight to Roth's assertion.

8 G. Michaut, Sainte-Beuve avant les lundis, (Fribourg, 1903), p. 106.

9 Léon Séché, Etudes d'histoire romantique : Sainte Beuve, (Paris, 1904) vol. I. Chapter on “La Bibliothèque de Sainte-Beuve.”

10 Correspondance, I, 68.

11 Portraits littéraires, II, 218: see also Chateaubriand, I, 84-85; N. L., VIII, 128.

12 N. L., VIII, 113.

13 N. L., VIII, 115.

14 Ibid., p. 112.

15 Ibid., p. 115.

16 Ibid., pp. 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 127. Sainte-Beuve never quotes Pope in English.

17 Aiming a shaft at Pontmartin for his bitterness and unbalanced cruelty toward his victims, Sainte-Beuve writes, “Je n'ai jamais lu, sans en chercher l'application autour de moi, ce beau passage de L'Essai sur la Critique de Pope; ‘but where the man …..‘” Gustave Planche personified this ideal. N. L., II, 15.

18 N. L., VIII, p. 120.

19 Ibid., p. 121.

20 Ibid., p. 122.

21 Ibid., p. 121.

22 Compare the following: in writing of Benjamin Constant's love of popularity, Sainte-Beuve concludes, “c'était là son rêve, sa passion dirigeante, et, selon la belle remarque de Pope, notre passion maîtresse (our ruling passion) persévère, se grave et s'enfonce au coeur en vieillissant.” N. L. I, 437 (Quoted from Pope, Essay on Man, lines 123 ff., and Moral Essays, I, passim.)

23 Grimm's ideas on politics are contained in Pope's verses, “laissez les fous combattre pour les formes de gouvernement, celui …. qui est le mieux administré, est le meilleur.” C. L., VII, 327. (Reference to Essay on Man, II, lines 303 ff.)

24 N. L:, VIII, 128. Sainte-Beuve's ideas on the master passion are studied acutely in Babbitt, op. cit., p. 173.

25 Eixplaining the penchant of the angel heroine of De Vigny's Eloa for Lucifer, he notes that Pope has said that every woman is “plus ou moins friponne dans le coeur et a un faible pour les mauvais sujets.” N. L.., VI, 408. (Reference to Moral Essays, II, lines 216 ff.).

26 Mme. Dacier “ne souffrait pas que Pope …. comparât l'Iliade à un vaste et fécond verger d'Ionie, ou, si l'on veut, à un jardin anglais.” Far from being left wild and crude, it was tamed and cultivated. C. L., IX, 497. (See also N. L., VIII, 116.)

27 Three references to Pope's letters and one to a postscript he wrote to a letter of Bolingbroke. Portraits de Femmes, 99; N. L., VIII, 131; iV. L., X, 448; C. L., III, 47.

28 The roll of critics of Pope that Sainte-Beuve had read is curious, containing as it does but one or two names of first importance. He mentions Mme. Dacier, Addison, Campbell, Bowles, Bentley, Dowden and Matthew Arnold; he was conversant with the ins and outs of the Byron-Campbell-Bowles controversy; he cites Spence's Anecdotes in C. L., XI, 214; N. L., VIII, 107, 111; but the names of Warton, DeQuincey and Johnson are missing from the list.

29 Gustave Michaut, Etudes sur Sainte-Beuve, (Paris, 1905), p. 92.

30 Babbitt, op. cit., 167-169.

31 Ibid., p. 169.

32 N. L., VIII, 112. Note that here, as elsewhere, he uses the term “l'école” to name the tendency, the practice, the appeal which runs through all ages, but has only once or twice crystallized into a formal school.

33 C. L., III, 43, 44.

34 N. L., VIII, 122. Here are other passages to confirm this statement: “l‘école studieuse et polie des Gray, des Pope, des Despréaux.” Portraits littéraires, II, 3. The poetic image is, he says, “un peu courte, et un peu juste dans l‘école moderne des Pope et des Boileau.”“ Chateaubriand, I, 207. He laments the sacrifice of ”les poètes que j'appellerai modérés….. Autrefois on ne plaidait pas pour Virgile, pour Horace, pour Boileau, Racine, Voltaire, Pope, le Tasse, admis et reconnus de tous.“ N. L., VIII, 115. Pope, Boileau and Fontanes stand together for Classical criticism. N. L., VIII, 116.

35 La Harpe is twice mentioned in connection with Pope, each time in regard to the similarity in their personal appearance, La Harpe being “dans sa chétive personne presque aussi exiguë que Pope.” N. L., X, 82. Also C. L., V, 127.

36 Chateaubriand, I, 114, note; C. L., V, 129; C. L., VII, 310; N. L., VIII, 123; N. L., XII, 378. In placing Pope as critic Sainte-Beuve notes that the art has gained much ground since the Eighteenth century, so that Lamb, for instance, knew and appreciated Shakespeare far better than Pope, because while the former applied the historical, scientific, philosophical method, the letter, relying on the unaided judgment of taste, failed in full comprehension. N. L., IX, 84.

37 Portraits littéraires, II, 3; Chateaubriand, I, 207; C. L., III, 44; C. L., V, 129; C. L., VI, 503; C. L., VII, 310; N. L., VIII, 115; N. L., VIII, 116; ibid., 126.

38 C. L., III, 44; C. L., V, 129; C. L., VI, 503; C. L., 310; N. L., VIII, 115; ibid., 123; N. L., XII, 378; Nouvelle Correspondance, 235.

39 Chateaubriand, I, 114, note; C. L., III, 52; N. L., VIII, 115; N. L., XII, 378.

40 C. L., III, 52.

41 N. L., VIII, 120.

42 C. L., III, 48.

43 C. L., III, 47.

44 Ibid., 47.

45 Ibid., 47.

46 N. L., VIII, 115.

47 N. L., VIII, 123.

48 Ernest Seillière, Sainte-Beuve, agent, juge et complice de l'évolution romantique, (Paris, 1921).

49 Seillière does not seem to me to give sufficient weight to Sainte-Beuve's own feeling about his Classicism. A statement like the first quoted in this study cannot be lightly dismissed, when it is, as it seems to be, what the author really felt. His appreciation of Flaubert and Baudelaire was natural, as he was a critic of catholic tastes and could be trusted to enjoy and praise good work, wherever he found it.

50 C. L., III, 53.