Shakespeare's formless plays and the degenerate 18th century in France

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Following up on the grammar published in 1780 by C.F. Lhomond, I took a look at the La Grammarie Genérale et Raisonée de Port-Royal, Par Arnauld et Lancelot. But the edition that Gallica steered me to turned out to be preceded by an "Essai sur l'origine et les progrès de la Langue françoise", by Claude Bernard Petitot (1772-1825).

This introductory essay is 246 pages long, so it took me a while to page through it to find the actual Port-Royal grammar. And as it scrolled by, it revealed itself as a curious screed, with essentially no connection with the grammar that it introduces. In the guise of a history of French literature, M. Petitot argues that French language, literature and culture became sadly degenerate in the 18th century. And apparently it was all the fault of the barbaric English, aided by those villains Voltaire and Rousseau.

[Warning: I found this interesting, as a reflection of one influential intellectual bureaucrat's thinking in the France of 1803 — the year of the Louisiana Purchase, the Haitian Revolution, and the start of the Napoleonic Wars. It's surprising that in 1803, just 14 years after the French revolution, the man in charge of public education in the Paris area is pining in print for the perfect politeness of Louis XIV's court, and railing against the "empty theories" of 18th-century political philosophy. Petitot's opinions about socio-culture degeneration strike me as analogous, mutatis mutandis, to those of some figures on the current American political scene. But you may well disagree, certainly about the interest and perhaps also about the analogy.]

Petitot was apparently a failed writer who became a successful educational bureaucrat:

Il devint, en 1800, chef de bureau de l’instruction publique de la Seine. Après avoir passé quelques années dans la retraite, il fut nommé par Fontanes inspecteur général des études (1809) et remplit, sous la Restauration, les fonctions de secrétaire général de la commission de l’instruction publique, de conseiller de l’Université (1821) et de directeur de l’Instruction publique (1824).

He became, in 1800, head of the office of public instruction of the [department of the] Seine. After some years of retirement, he was named by Fontanes inspector general of studies (1809) and filled, under the Restoration, the functions of secretary general of the commission of public instruction, councillor of the University (1821) and director of public instruction (1824).

His essay starts this way:

Les progrès et la décadence d'une langue sont inséparables des progrès et de la décadence du gout. Pour s'assurer de l'état d'une langue, il faut examiner si, depuis sa fixation, l'on n'a point altéré son génie, en introduisant de mauvaises constructions, en inventant de nouveaux mots, en détournant l'acception des termes admis, en confondant les genres de style : voilà les signes auxquels on reconnoît la décadence des langues.

The progress and the decay of a language are inseparable from the progress and the decay of taste. In order to guarantee the state of a language, we must test that, since its establishment, users have not degraded its spirit, by introducing bad constructions, by inventing new words, by distorting the meaning of accepted terms, by mixing up different kinds of style : those are the signs by which we recognize the decay of languages.

After a couple of hundred pages in which he chronicles the rise of the French language to the pinnacle represented by Corneille, Racine, and Molière, he describes an aesthetic disaster:

Après ce beau siècle, les moeurs changèrent, et le goût changea avec elles. Les orgies de la régence succédèrent aux fêtes nobles de Louis xiv; le langage cynique, où l'oubli des bienséances fut souvent porté à l'excès, remplaça la langue décente d'une cour où la politesse avoit été perfectionnée. Bientôt on trouva de la monotonie dans les chefs-d'oeuvres; et, pour flatter le goût d'un public blasé, on eut recours aux tours de force, aux termes ampoulés, aux sentimens exagérés; les jeux de mots, les expressions détournées de leurs véritables acceptions, les frivoles jeux d'esprit, firent oublier la gaîté franche et naïve de nos bonnes comédies.

After this beautiful century, customs changed, and taste changed with them. The orgies of the regency replaced the noble celebrations of Louis XIV; cynical language, where the lapse of manners was often taken to excess, replaced the decent language of a court where politeness had been perfected. Masterpieces were found to be boring; and, to pander to the taste of a jaded public, writers resorted to spectacular effects, with overblown wording, exaggerated opinions. Word play, expressions twisted away from their true interpretation, frivolous witticisms, made the public forget the candid and naive joyfulness of our good comedies.

What caused this catastrophe? Voltaire and his introduction of English literature to a French audience:

Voltaire fut le premier qui fit connoître aux François la littérature angloise. L'enthousiasme qu'il excita pour les philosophes de cette nation, donna une nouvelle force à l'esprit de doute et d'innovation qui commençoit à se répandre. La hardiesse des idées politiques n'eut plus de bornes, et tout annonça un changement prochain dans les lois et dans le gouvernement de la France. Les anciennes institutions devinrent des objets de risée, toutes les classes de la société se confondirent, et l'on se fit une gloire d'abandonner les usages nationaux pour se livrer à une licence dont les attraits cachoient le danger. L'anglomanie se répandît avec autant de rapidité sur la littérature. Le théâtre informe de Shakespeare fut traduit; les éditeurs annoncèrent avec une confiance fastueuse, que le poëte anglois avoit seul connu l'art de la tragédie, et que les tragédies de Corneille et de Racine n'étoient que de belles amplifications. Toute la France admira les pièces monstrueuses de Shakespeare; l'exagération, l'emphase et le faux goût se mirent en possession de notre théâtre, et gâtèrent presque tous les ouvrages modernes.

Voltaire was the first to make English literature known to the French. The enthusiasm that he stimulated for the philosophers of that nation gave new force to the spirit of doubt and innovation that began to spread. The boldness of political ideas had no bounds, and everything forecast an imminent change in the laws and the government of France. The traditional institutions became the butt of jokes, all the classes of society became mixed together, and people took pride in abandoning national customs to surrender themselves to a licentiousness whose attractions hid its dangers. Anglomania spread with equal rapidity throughout literature. The shapeless plays of Shakespeare were translated; the editors announced with luxurious confidence that the English poet was the only one to understand the art of tragedy, and that the tragedies of Corneille and Racine were merely pretty footnotes. All of France admired the hideous plays of Shakespeare; exaggeration, pomposity, and bad taste took possession of our theater, and spoiled nearly all modern works.

Ce goût effréné pour la littérature angloise peut être considéré comme une des principales causes de la décadence de notre littérature. Voltaire le reconnut enfin, et il s'éleva souvent contre une manie qu'il pouvoit se reprocher d'avoir introduite. M. de Laharpe, dans des dissertations pleines de chaleur et de logique, a démontré jusqu'à l'évidence les absurdités du poëte anglois; et l'on doit à ce grand littérateur d'être revenu de l'aveugle admiration que l'on avoit conçue pour des pièces barbares.

This frantic appetite for English literature may be considered as one of the main causes of the decay of our literature. Voltaire finally recognized this, and he stood up often against a mania that he could reproach himself for having introduced. M. de Laharpe, in many works full of warmth and logic, has conclusively shown the absurdities of the English poet; and we owe to this great man of letters to have returned from the blind admiration that had been felt for those barbaric plays.

According to Petitot, Rousseau added a sort of double whammy of decadence:

L'éloquence de Rousseau se ressentit de l'espèce de charlatanisme qu'il employoit. Elle ne fut point franche et naturelle, comme celle de Bossuet. L'affectation, l'emphase, un faux enthousiasme s'y firent trop souvent remarquer. Ces défauts ne furent pas mêmes aperçus à une époque où le goût commençoit à dégénérer, aux yeux de plusieurs personnes, ils passèrent pour des beautés. Rousseau exerça une grande influence sur son siècle. Les hommes nés avec un caractère sérieux et méditatif, que les plaisanteries de Voltaire ne séduisoient pas, lurent avidement les ouvrages du philosophe de Genève ; les âmes honnêtes se laissèrent facilement entraîner sous les étendards d'un homme qui sembloit porter jusqu'à l'excès l'amour de la vérité et de la vertu, et qui, surtout, ne négligeoit aucun moyen pour émouvoir et attendrir le coeur. La mode de mettre par-tout de la sensibilité, paroît avoir commencé à Rousseau. Personne n'abusa plus que lui du goût qu'il avoit su inspirer aux lecteurs, pour des rêveries vagues auxquelles on attacha une grande importance lorsqu'on exagéra les délices de la mélancolie. Une grande partie des livres du temps, quel que fût le sujet que l'on y traitât, portèrent ce caractère sentimental et mélancolique, dont les bons esprits ont commencé de nos jours à faire sentir le ridicule.

Rousseau's eloquence suffers from the type of charlatanism that he practiced. [His eloquence] was not at all frank and natural, like Bossuet's. Affectation, pomposity, false enthusiasm were too often present. These faults were not perceived at the time when taste began to decay, and they seemed beauties to many people. Men born with a serious and contemplative character, who were not seduced by Voltaire's jokes, were avid readers of the philosopher from Geneva ; decent men easily let themselves be enlisted under the banners of a man who seemed even excessively committed to the love of truth and virtue, and who, especially, neglected no method of moving and softening the heart. The style of putting sensitivity above all seems to have started with Rousseau. No one abused more than him the taste that he was able to inspire in readers, for vague dreams to which a great importance was attached by exaggerating the delights of melancholy. Many of the books of the time, whatever subject they dealt with, took on this sentimental and melancholy character, of which the better minds of our days have begun to sense the absurdity.

Petitot closes on an upbeat note, appropriate for the politician that he apparently was:

J'ai cherché à présenter un tableau fidèle des progrès de la langue françoise, et des causes de sa décadence. On a vu que les nouveaux systèmes qui se sont succédés si rapidement dans le dix-huitième siècle, ont contribué à la faire dégénérer. Le commencement du dix-neuvième, signalé par l'oubli de toutes ces vaines théories, par le retour aux bons principes, et par l'aurore du bonheur public, dont l'âge du héros qui préside aux destinées de la France nous garantit la durée, annonce la renaissance des lettres, et promet à la patrie de Corneille et et de Racine, une époque semblable à ces temps heureux où la langue latine reprit son ancienne gloire sous les auspices glorieux de Titus et de Trajan.

I have tried to present a true picture of the progress of the french language, and of the causes of its decay. We've seen that the new systems that sprang up so rapidly in the 18th century have contributed to cause this decay. The start of the 19th century, marked by the oblivion of these empty theories, by the return of sound principles, and by the dawn of public happiness, for which the age of the hero now guiding the destiny of France guarantees a long duration, announces the rebirth of literature, and promises to the country of Corneille and Racine an era like those happy times when the Latin language regained its former glory under the glorious auspices of Titus and Trajan.



4 Comments

  1. MattF said,

    June 7, 2015 @ 9:26 am

    La peeve profonde.

  2. Alain Turenne said,

    June 7, 2015 @ 10:48 am

    Excellent translation, but rendering

    'dont l'âge du héros [singular] qui préside aux destinées de la France'

    by

    'for which the age of heroes [plural] now guiding the destiny of France'

    tones down what looks (to me) like an obsequious reference to Bonaparte.

    [(myl) Good point — careless mistake on my part — fixed now.]

  3. djbcjk said,

    June 8, 2015 @ 12:16 am

    So, just as Mark Twain said that Sir Walter Scott caused the American Civil War, Shakespeare indirectly caused the French Revolution.

  4. J.W. Brewer said,

    June 8, 2015 @ 9:45 am

    I don't know exactly what sort of attitudes toward which prior regime were "safe" to express in France as of 1803, but suggesting that the ancien regime had been pretty wonderful a hundred years previously but then had become very seriously decadent and troubled well before 1789 is a good way of setting up a position that the revolution was understandable as a reaction to the immediate status quo while still leaving plenty of room to decry the revolution's excesses.

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