Consecration Of The Writer, 1750-1830: Le Sacre De Lecrivain, 1750-1830; Author: Benichou, Paul; Author: Translator Jensen, Mark; Hardback; Book

Author: Benichou, Paul; Author: Translator Jensen, Mark
European Horizons; Hardback; Book; Index
512 pages
Published: August 1999
University of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803212917

The first volume of literary critic Benichou's study of French romanticism examines the point at which writers ceased to speak as representatives of some religious or political power and began to assume the mantle of spiritual authority in their own right. Benichou contradicts the view that romanticism was an irrational response against the Enlightenment. Instead, he argues, the romantics reacted to the trauma of the Age of Revolution with a revised understanding of the Enlightenment faith in humanity that better understood spiritual experience.Presents the first stages of a process in which writers ceased to speak only for some religious or political power, and instead seized the chance to speak directly to and for humanity. The book also seeks to show that it was a revision of the Enlightenment faith rather than a reaction against it.