‘A great iconoclast of literary criticism.’ JOHN SUTHERLAND, Guardian DISTAN READIN feet el ; aoe Ind Gravedigye ees ao erate i Detar ered a Poa care peace Eran Es ai ord Geritlemar Cen wee ets TT 39003028454592 Con) Franco MorettiDISTANT READING FRANCO MORETTI = uOttawa CER AROFirst published by Verso 2013 Franco Moretti 2 appeared in the pages of New Left Review: ‘Modern al Sketch’, July-August 1994; “Conjectures on World Literature’, Ja February 2000; ‘Planet Hollywood’, May-June 2001; ‘More April 2003; “The End of the Beginning: A Reply to Christophe October 2006; “The Novel: History and Theory’, JulyAugust 2008; ‘Network Theory, Plot Analysis’, March—April 201 Conjectures’, March Prend 1, March 2001 Jhterhouse of Literature’ appeared in Modem Language Quarterly Evolution, World-Systems, Weltliteracur’ appeared in Review Inc.: Reflections on 7,000 Titles (British Novels, 1740-1850) ared in Crit ts of the author have been asserted Verso UK: 6 Meard Street, London WF 0E( US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201 www. \ks.com Verso is the imprint of New Left Books ISBN-13: 978-1-78168-084-1 (PBK) ISBN-13: 978-1-78168-112-1 (HBK) British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Moretti, Franco, 1950: [Essays. Selections] Distant reading / Franco Moret pages em Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-78168-08 alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-78168-112-1 (hardbac Crit Literature—History and criticism. PN8I.M666 2013 801'.95—de23 2012047274 Typeset in Fournier by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburg! Printed in the US by Maple Vail To D.A. Miller Vamico americanoContents Modern Furopean Literacure: A Geographical Skeich Conjectures on World Literature The Slaughterhouse of Literature Planet Hollywood More Conjectures Evolution, World-Systems, Welsiterazar The End of the Repinning: A Reply to Christopher Prendergast The Novel: History and Theory Style, Inc.: Reflections on 7,000 Titles (British Novels, 1740-1850) Network Theory, Plat Analysis Jadex a3 03 a1 107 17| (3? 159 i79 211 241Modem Huropean Literature: A Geographical Sketch dn che spring of 199, Carle Gingburg asked me ta write an essay on European literature for che first valume of Finaudt’s Storia Europa. f had been thinking for some time about uropean fiterature—in particu far, about its capacity to yrenerate new forms, which seenied so historically snigue—and in a book J had just finished reading I found the theoretical framework for che essay. tt was Ernst Mayes Systematics and the Origin of Species, where the concep: of ‘allopatric spectation' (alloparry = 2 homeland elsewhere) explained the yenests of new species by their move- ment into new spaces. f took forms as the kiterery analogue of species, and chanted the morphological rransformations triggered by European peopra- phy: the differentiation of tragedy in the seventeenth cencury, the naved’s take-offin che eighteench, ibe ceneralization and thea flagmeneation of the dterary field in the nineseenth and wweniieth, The notion of ‘European literature’, singutar, was replaced by that of an archipelage of distinct yet clase national cultures, where styles and stories moved quickly and frequent, undergoing afl sorts of metamurphoces. Creativity bad found gn explanation that made it seem easy, and almust inevitable. This was.a happy essay. Aimed at a non-academic audience, and on sucha farge ropic, it asked for ¢delunce herveen che absmacrion of madet-buildingDistant Reading and the vividness of individual exaryples—a wene, a character, a line of verse—that would make i worth reading in the first place. Somehow, 7 found the night cone; possibly, Secanse of my weal reliance on the canon of Euurnpean mosterpitces (as a colleague pointed aut, the word ‘preat' seemed ubipattous in the essay; and it was, f used it fifty-one times). The canon allowed far comparative analysis to cake place: Shakespeare and Racine, the conte philosophique and the Bildungsroman, rhe fustrians ond she avant-gardes ... 41 the years went by, I would move increasingly away from this idea of laeranure as a collection of masterpieces; and in sth, Ife? no nostalgic for whas it meant, But the conceptual cogency shat a smatl see af texts allows far—rhas, Ide anits. This was o hoppy essay. Evolution, gengraphy, and formatiom—the three approaches that would define my work for over a decode—first came inta systenvatic contact while writing these pages. i felt curious, full of enegys I hepr studying. adding, correcting. J leamed lot, and one day Feven had the first, confused idea ofan Alas of fteracure. And then, 7 was writing in italian; for the fast time, as tt rumed our - though, at the time, I didn’: know tt. in Italian, sentences run easier; details, anid even nuances, seem to emerge afl by thenisefves. ia English, ti would aif be difforenc. a ‘Years ago, Denis de Rougement published a study entitled Twenty- aight Centuries of Europe; here, readers will only find five of them, the most recent. ‘The idea is thae the sixteenth century acts as a double watershed—against the past, and against other continents after which European literature develops that formal inventiveness that makes it truly unique. (Not everybody agrees on this point, however, and so we will begin by comparing opposite explanatory models.) As for examples, the limited space at my disposal Has been @ great help; I have felt free to focus on a few forms, and make Madern Karopeon Literature: A Geowraphical Skecch + defmite choices. If che description will not be complete (but is that ever the case?), at least it will not Jack clarity. t. A MopeL: UN(Fren EUROPE Thase were beanrifal times, those were splendid times, the times of Christian Europe, wticn one Christianity inhabited this continent shaped in hmman form, and one vast, shared design united the furthest provinces of rhis spiritual kingdom. Free from extended worldly possessiuns, one supreme ruler held wgether the great political forces .. . What you have just read are the first sentences of Christiantry, or Europe, the celebrated essay written by Novalis in the very last months af the eighteenth century. As its underlying structure, a very simple, very effective equation: Europe is Christianiry, and Christianity is unity. All threats to such unity—the Reformation, af course; but also the modern nation stares, economic competition, or ‘untimely, hazacdous discoveries in the realm of knowledge’— threaten Evroape as well, and induce Novalis, who is all but a moderate thinker, to approve of Galilei's humiliation, or to sing: a hymn in praise of the Jesuits—‘with an admirable foresight and constance, with a wisdom such as the world had never seen hetore .. .a Society appeared, the equal of which had never been in universal history..." (ere, let me just point out how chis imtransi- gent conception of Eurapean unity—one Christianity, one design, one ruler is also the backbone of the only scholarly masterpiece devoted co our subject: Est Robert Cuttius’s European fiterarure and the Farin Middle Ages, published in 1948. ‘This work aims at #rasping European literature as a unified whole, and to found such unity on the Latin tradition,’ reads Averbach’s review.' And thus 1 Brich Auesbach's review article was published in Ronranisehe Foreedumgem,4 PDistane Reading Curtius himself: “We must conceive of the Middle Ages in their continuity both with Antiquity and with the modern world. This is the only way to construct what Toynbee would call ‘an intelligible field of study'—the field being precisely Eycopean literature Onto Novalis’s spatial order (Rome as the centre of Europe), Curtius superimposes the remporal sequence of Latin zaps. with tts fulcrum in the Middle Apes, which again leads to Home. urope is unique because id js one, and i: is one because it has a cencre: ‘Being Ruropean means having become ctves romiant, Roman citizens.” And here's the tub, of course: because Curtis's Europe is not really Europe, butracher ta use the teem so dear to him—"Romania’, Je a single space, unified by che Latin Christian spirit that still pervades those universalistic works (The Divine Comedy, Fist) which seem to establish separate ‘national’ literurures, bur in fact pré-cmpt them. In Turope, for Curtius, there is room for one litera- tare only, and thal is European literature. If circumscribed ro the Middle Ages where most of the evidence comes from—this model may well be invulnerable. But Cuctius has something else in mind: nat the delirmeation of the Middle Ages. bur theit pertnanence well into modernity. The Jine about Eucopean litera- ture being ‘intelligible’ only because of medieval connnuity leaves no donbrs abourit. And yet, ‘in today's spiritual situarion’, that very unity which has survived for cvenry centuries is threatened as never before: “This book is not the result of purely scientific concems; it arises out of # preocenpation for the safeguard of Western civilization. [ris an Atempt ar clarifying . . . the unity of this cradition across ume and. LOS, pp. 237 45. 2 kemest Robert Curtius, Eunveduche Luerarar und Lateintiche Mitcelairer, 148, 2rd edn, Bern 1954, p. 387. 3 Thid.,p. 22. Modern Exropean Literature: A Geographical Sketch i space. In the spiritual chaos of our ape, proving the existence of such uniry has become necessary...‘ Chaes. Reviewing Uéysses in 1923, Eliot had evoked ‘the immense panorama of fuciliry and anarchy which is contemporary history’;* while for Novalis, chaos was ar work already in che sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And the reason for the crisis is at bottom always the same: the moder nation state, which from its very ineeptian—‘irrelipiously", as Novalis puts i-—has rejected a super- national spiritual centre. Historical conjunctures have certainly contributed to this hostilicy: Novalis is writing ducing the Napoleome wars, Flot and Currius immediately after the First and Second World Wars. But above and beyond specific events, rhe distrust of the nation state 1s probably the logical outcome of their overall model: te the extent chat European culture can exist ondy as uneey (Latin, or Christian, or both), then the nation state is the veritable negasion of Europe. No compromise 15 possible, in this pre-modern, or rather ane-modern model; either Europe is an organic whole, or else nothing at all. In exisis if' states do not, and vice versa: when the latter arise, Europe as such vanishes, and can only be visualized in the eleyiag mode. Novalis's essay, in fact, is already a dirge for a world that has lost ns soul; no lonper ‘inhabited’ by the great Christian design, his Europe has been damned to be mere matter: space devoid of sense. The “continent shaped in human form’ wens into the warld of ‘toral sinfulness” described by the Yheory of the Novel (which opens with an unmistak- able allusion to the first lines of Chrsrianity). And even though Lukacs never explicitly says so, his novelistic universe, which is no longer ‘a home’ for the hero, is precisely madern Europe: 4 Ibid, p-? (the passage belongs ro the pretace Lo the second edition). 3 *tilysees, Order and Myth’, The Dial, November 1923, p. 201.Distant Reading Our world has became infinitely large. and each of its corners is richer in gifts and dangers tian che world of the Greeks, but such wealth cancels out the positive meaning—the cotality—upon which their life was based.* The withering away ofa unified totality asa loss ofmeaning ... But is this inevitably the case? 2. ANOTHER Mover: Divinep Evroae 1828. A generarian has pone by, and che German catholic Newalis is countered by the French protestant Guizot: In the history of nou-European peoples, the simulrancuus presence of confbeting principles has been a sort of accident, limited to episudic enses...The opposice is tue for the civilization of modem Europe... varied, confused, stormy from its very inception; all forms, all principles of social organization coexist here: spirinaal and erporal nile, the Lheocranc, monarchic, aristocratic, democzatic element; all classes, all social positions crowd and overlap; there are countess Sradations of freedom and wealth and power. Among these forers, 4 Permanent struggle: none of them manages to stifle the ovhers, and 1 seize the nonopoly of secial pawer... In the ileas and feelings of Europe, thesamedifference, the same struggle, Theoeraic, monacchic, anstocraic, popular convictions confront cach other and clash ...7 For Novalis, disparity and conflict poisoned Europe; for Guizot, they constitute it. Par from lamenting a lost unity, his Europe owes its success precisely to the coflapse of Roman—Chrisuan universal- & Gyorgy Lukics, Thcory of the Novel, Cambridge, MA 1968 (1914), p. 34 7 Frangois Guinot, dftnaire de te Civeidsazion en Europe, bth edn, Paris 155 (1828), op. 35, 97 8. Modern European Literature: 4 Geographical Sketch ? ism, which has made it polycentric and flexible.* No point in looking for its secret in one place, or value, or institution; indeed, it’s best ta forget the idea of a European ‘essence’ altogether and perceive it as a polytherstic field of forces. Edgar Morin, Penser t’Eurape: “AIL simplifications of Europe—idealization, abstraction, reduce don—tmutilate it, Europe is a Complex (complexus: what is woven together) whose peculiarity consists is combining the sharpest differences without confusing them, and in uniting opposites sn that they will not be separated.” Like all complex systems, Europe changes over time ( from the sixteenth century on}, and therefore, Morin again, ‘its identity is defined not despite its metamorphoses, but chrougA them’. ‘This polycentric Europe, decidedly accident prone, ne longer shuns disorder, but seizes upon it as an occasion for more daring and complex patterns. In che feld of literature, this implies a farewell to specially Curtius’s ‘Romania’, with its fixed geogeaphical centre, and the 8 Thus also Geollvey Barraclough (Eurapean Unity ia Thoughe anu! Action, Oniosd 1963, pp. 7, 12-13): ‘The idea af Furape as a distinct unity is pose: classival. In was created in tic Middic Ages. In the most general terms, it may be described as a cesult of rhe collapse of the universalism of the Roraan Empire. (The Carolingian Empire] was nota “starting poiet,” but a cnnclusidin... it was necessary for the Curulingian Empire to collapse for Europr ta come inte being... European uniry could hencefnrward only mean the aeuculation not the suppression—of ingrained regional divecsiry.* Similae consideratiens inform auother work largely itflucnced by Guicat, Federica Chabod's Storia dell'iden dé Auzopa, Ravi (361. Immanuel Wallerstein has developed this insight in rerms of cvonamic hiseary, defining modem capitalism as that social formation which “operates Wlhin an arena larger ehan that which any political entity can eatally control’: the divided states of seventeenth-century Europe were thereftre capable of char take-off which proved impossible for the politically united Asiatic empires (rmannel Wallersteis, The Modern World-System. New York \974, pp. HB, 61-3}. In the same direction, see also Eric Jones, The European Miracle, Cambridge 1981, 9 Paris 1987.Distant Reading diachronic chain of topos linking it to classical amiquity. His “European literature’ is replaced by a ‘system of European litera- tures’: national (and regional) entities, clearly different, and often hostile to each other, I is a producrive enmiry, without wlrich they would all be more insipid. Bur it never turns into sel{-suificiency. or motual ignorance: no deserts, here, no oceans, no unbridgeable distances to harden for centuries the features of a civilization. Europe's narrow space forces each culture ta interact with all others imposing a common destiny, with {ts hierarchies and power rela- tions. There ure resistances ro the establishment ol this system, as with Russian literarure, which splits between westerizers and slavophiles, in a beautitnl instance of the geographical realiry of Europe: of its being, not really 4 concinent, but a large Asian penin- sula, with the area of conjunction—Rnssia understandably doubtful about its own identity. But Europe's attraction is too strong, and from fathers and Sans 1a The Brotters Aoramazow, from War and Peace to Perersdurg, the dramatization of the uncertainty becomes in its tuch a great theme not only of Russian, but also (as in Thomas Mana) of European culnure. Narional literatures, then, ina European system: and among them, what relationship? According to many, the rule lies in @ sort of duplication, with national cultures acting as microcosms of Eurnpe; thus England for Ehor, France for Guizot, Iraly for Dionisctii, Ausima for Werfel... There is some truth, of course, in this discovesy of common European festures in all great continental cultures, But when a hypothesis is always on target, it stops being interesting, and beee 1 will propose a different model. Literary Europe will he in the following pages a kind of ecosystem that defines differen: possibilities of growth for each national literature. At times its horieon will act as a brake, pre-empting or slowing down intellectual development; at ocher times, it will offer unex- pected chances, which wiil crystallize in mventions as precious as they are unlikely. Let us see a first instance. Modern Furopean Literature: 4 Geographical Sketch 9 3. BAROQUE TRaCcepy, Evnore (pens Ue Nothing conveys the idea of a polycentric Europe as sharply as che genesis of the great baroque tragedy. In the mid sixteenth cemucy, one sull encounters figures such as George Buchanan: a Scot, who works in London and Paris, and writes his tragedie ; well-known biblical subjects: an excellent instance of the lasting unity-—across time and across space—of European drama. For cultivated tcagedy the model is almost always Seneca, while medi- eval traditions, rooted in popular religion, tend to be very similar everywhere. Shared by all of western Europe is also the figuee of the tragic hero (the absolme sovereign), and the ‘memorable scene’ (the court}, where his downfall shall take place. From this space and here arises however the firs disconunuiry with the classical heritage. The new sovereign—ab-soluns, untied, freed from the ethico-political bonds of the feudal tradition has achieved what Hepel will call ‘self-determinaion’: he can decide freely, and thus posit himself-as the new source of historical move- ment. as inthe Frewerspicl, and Gorfoduc, and Lear, where everything indeed begins with his decisions; asin Racine, or Ze Fide es Sueno. The new prince has unburdened himself writes Kieckegaard— ‘of substantial determinations, like family, stage, or bloodline (hich constitute] the veritable Fate of Greek trayedy’."” And yet, chis king that has freed himself from Hate has become himself his oon Fate: the more absolure be is, che more energetic and self- determined, the more he will resemble a tyrant, and draw che entire kingdom to its rain, The sovereign act which breaks with the pastis a jump in the dark: Hamiet scriking behind che arcas, Sigismundo ruling in his ‘dream’. Itis moder literarure’s frst look at the future: an accursed horizon, and an inevitable ime. Phédre's firsrsentence ‘N"allons paint plus avant’ is a useless wish, for mapedy has sec 10 Soren Kierkegaard, Aither/ Or, Princeton 1971, vel. 1, p. AL10 Distant Reading history on a sliding plane—tomerrow, and tomorcow, and tomor- row’—which atfers no turning hack. If the tragic hero cannot hold himself back, the space be inhabits is endowed for its part with an extraordinary force of gravity. “My deci- sion is taken: I am leaving, dear Théraméne’, reads the opening line of Phédre; bur of course no one is allowed to leave Trezene. ‘In iphigenie—writes Barthes in Sur Racine—'a whole people is held captive by tragedy because the wind does not tise.’ In Hamier, charac- ters seatter hecween Wittenberg and Paris, Norway and Poland {and the other world); Lamlet himself wants to leave Norway, is sent to England, and kidnapped by pirates. But it is all in vain; Fortinbras and Moratio, Hamlet and Laertes {and the Ghose) all keep their appomt- ment in Flsinore to celebrate the great tecatomb. Rosaura’s horse gers out of comrol, and ‘therefore’ Jeads her straight to Sigismunda’s towers in Le Vide es Sueno, alter all, jail and courtaze the only real spaces, and ina sense—as for the ‘prison Denmark’, or the serail in Bajayer they are the same space. ‘In the last analysis’ Barthes again—‘ir is tragic space that generates tragedy... cvery tragedy seems ro consist in a trivial sere’s 2a rooms for aco. Tragic condlict is a crisis oF space.” Perhaps, a crisis of space produced by a reorganization of space that has been soo suecessfad: thar has taken the claims of absolutism too seri- ously. “The theory of sovereignry’, writes Benjamin, ‘positively demands the complerion of the image of the sovercign, as ryrant.’! ‘True, and the sane applies to the court; the strengthening of the nance state (with its uncertain boundaries, and lack of internal homogeneity) required frst of all an indisputable centre of gravity: small, powerful, undivided, where indeed there should be “no room for twa’. The space of the court: but, for the same reasons, af tragedy too. Although many other elements contribute lo che formation of 1] Walter Benjamin, Pe Ongins of she German Baroque Drama, london 1977 11928), p. 6 Madern Eucapeen Literature: 4 Geographical Sketch 1 baroque tragedy, the two 1 have discussed are probably the most imponafit ones, and they both convey the same historical message: tragic form is the paradoxical outcome of the vielence required by the formation of the nation state. In ix the form through which European literature is first touched by Modernity, and in fact sare apare by it: for within a couple of generations, the stable, common features of European drama are replaced by a rapid succession of major formal mutations. By the mid sevemeenth century, the tragedy of western Europe has branched our in three or four sepa- rate versions, where everything has changed: the relationship berween word and action, the number of characters, stylistic regis- ter, temporal span, plot conventions, spatial movements, verse forms. In fact, nor even the name of ‘tragedy’ is shared any longer- It’s the ‘speciation’ of evolutionary theory; the genesis of distinct forms where there used to be only one. Bur what made it possible? The separate national cultures? Yes, and no. Yes, in the obvious sense that cach version of baroque tragedy is rooted in a speciftc national context—one of the three preat western nation states, or the German and Italian territories, But if this space is ideal for the eaistence of one form, it is already too centred and homagencous, too narrow to allow for the branching out of mutations we have to explain. In the Spain of the sglo de ora there is no room for German Trauerspie!, just as, in the eyes of the sragddie classique, Shakespeare isanabsurdity tobe avaided (letalone the Jacobeans). Morphological variery needs a broader space than the nation; with more cultural ‘niches’ for mutations to take root, and later contribute to literary evolution.'? "It's a well-known fact’ writes Jacques Monod—'thar 12 ‘Later’ means here: even centuries later, CF cheer trafic variations which arose almost simultaneausly, che Spanish one achieved its European hegemony between the sixteenth and seventeenth cencuries; the French one, during the dge classique; ube English onc, from the Sturm und Drang t6 the end of the nineteenth cenary. And had Benjamin been a litte morc hacky, the twentieth century might well have been che century of the Fraserspial.ua iMsiant Kegding the important turing points in evolution have coincided with the invesion of new ecological spaces."" And Stephen Jay Gould: ‘Diversity—the mumber of different species present in a given area is strongly influenced, if not controlled, by the amount ef the habitable area itself."" A larger habitat. then: Europe. But which Furape? Io an interesting analytical page (to which | shall ream), Curtius delineates a sort of literary relay, 4 secular retation af the literature thar dominates the rést of Europe; in our period, for him, Spanish literarure. Yet had Rurope been really as united as Curtius would have it—had it been a sort of Spain writ lurge—then it would present the same limita- tions of the Spanish nation slate: and there would be ne room for the Feench o the English version of tragic form. Once more, che Europe we need is Guizer's, with the constitutive dis-union of its cultural scene.” And this means that Europe doesn't simply atfer ‘more’ space than any nation stare, but especially a different space: discontinuous, fractured, the Furopean space functions as a sort of archipelago of (national) sub-spaces, cach af them specializing in one formal variation." If seen ‘from within’, and in isolation, these national spaces may well appear hostile to variations; they ‘fi’ on one form, and don’t tolerate alternatives. But if seen ‘trom the ourside’, and as parts ofa continental system, the same nation states act as the carers of variarions, they allow for the formal galaxy of 13 Jacqnes Monod, Chance und Mzcewity, London 1972, p. 12) 14 Stepaer. Jay Gaou.d, Ever Stace Darwen, New York 177, p. Ga. 15 ‘leis evident shar this civilizauon cannot be found, nor its history fully appreciated, within the boundaries nf a single state, If European civilizatinn has ts own unity, ils varicty is not less prodigious, and has never fully manifested itself in a single country. lis several featares arc disseminared here and there: ine must look for the elemenrs which conschate Exrapean history in Feance just as ia England, in Germany just as ia Italy or Spa Guiews, Histoire, pp. 5-6 Aichipelages are pusited as madele of geographic speciation in Emst Meyr's classic Sprcematics and che Origin of Spectes, New York L942. Modern Luropean Lucrature: 4 Geographical Sketch 3 bacoque tragedy which would have been unthinkable in a {still} unified Europe. ‘Would there be Shakespeare, had Enyland nat been an island? Who knows? Dut thac the greatest novelties of travic form should arise away from the mainland, and from someone with ‘sinall Latin and less Greek’, is quite a sign of what European Hterature had 10 gain trom losing its uniry, and forgetting its past. In the spatial modcl ] have begun to outline, geography is na longer the speechless onlooker of the—historical—deeds of the “European spirit’, The Furopean space is nor a landscape, nur a backdrop of history, but a componenr of it; always important, often decisive, ir suggests that literary forms change ‘in’ time, no doubt, but not teally "because’ of time. ‘The most significant transformations do not occur because a form has a lot of time at its disposal: but because at che right moment—which is asa rule very short it has @ dor of’ space. Just think again of baroque tragedy; is its formal variery the result of passing time—of history? Linde or nothing: English tragedy and Traverspiel, Spanish drama and sragédie classégue all achieve rather quickly a stable structure, which remains unchanged for decades, until it becomes sterile and disappears. A form needs time in order to reproduce itself; but in order co arise it is space that it needs most. Space, spaces, plural, of neighbouring, rival culrures; where the exploration of formal possibilities may he allowed, and in fact encouraged as a sort of patriotic duty. Once more: the space of a divided Europe.” 17 The principle of spatial dispersion applies to liecary sryles and movements as well as genres. Thus Van Tiephem on Hoinanticism: ‘to consider these three literatures [German, English, and French] sufficient manilesinion of European Romanticism would urdecestimate its rich variery; aewally, several af ius not characteristic leatures are better represented ins othr Hteramunes, less well kann than the major uncs’ earepéene, Parin 1943p, 115 Paul ¥an Tieghem, fe Romanrisme dans ia fitrdracure1 Phurane Reading 4. TUE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS Baroque trazedy is among the first expressions of Kuropean poly- centrism. For several generations, however, isolation and mumal ignorance are still very strong: the case of Shakespeare—whose influence on the continent must wait rill the end of the eighteenth cencury—is a clear sign of this state of affairs, The continental system is still at a potential stage; rhe elemems are all there, but there’s no switch to connect them yer. And chat literary Europe is the sum of its parts, but not much more, is after all the picture offered by its first historian, Henry Elallam, in the four long volumes of his faroduction ra che Literature of Europe in the Fifieensh, Sixteenth, and Sevenceensh Centuries."* With implacable punctuality, Hallam slices the historical continuum every ten (or thirty, of filty) years, and subjects each of che five prear areas of westem Europe to a meticulous investigation. Buc spatial proximity never cucns into functional interaction; Hallam’s Europe is a mechamcal sum of its separate parrs, and nothing more." Rereft of internal links, it is a 18 London 1837-39, New York 1970, 19 Jost one instance, dewwn from the seaiog ontided ‘History of che Luereture of Taste in Prope feexn 152010 1580", second pan, ‘State af Dramatic Representation in [tdly—Spain and Portugal—France—Germany England’, ‘This is how the various national chapters begin: ‘We have already seen the beginoings of the ttakan comedy, founded in ine style, and feequcntly in ies subjects. npon Piautus.,'; ‘Meantine, a people very celebrared in dramatic literatare was forming its national theave. A few aueiapts were made in Spain... 5 ‘The Portuguese Gil Vieente may perhaps compete with Torres Naharro for the honour of leading the dramatists of the peninsula .. ";'We hare fo record uf any original dramatic composition belonging te this age in France, ‘with the exception of mysteries and motalitics , ..";'In CGiermany, meantime, the pride of the meiver-singers, Hans Sachs, og alane sufficiene to pour forth a plenteous stream tor the stage. 'The myseeries founded upan scriptural or legendary histories... continued te amuse the English public...” Uatroduction, pp. 601-8), The connection berween ational spaces is established through the annalistic convention of the ‘meantiene’; temporal simulraneity, here, implies ne structural interaction. Modern European Literature: A Geographical Sketch ry lagge, yet structurally Fragile construction; an easy prey to the great classicist counter-attack, a5 a consequence of which the develap- ment of the European system comes to a hule for aver a cencury. To be sure as suggested by the metaphor of the Republic of Letters, coined precisely in this age—cultivated Europe has never been so united as in the dge cdarrgue. But it’s a anity gained at the price of diversity, Think of the semantic destiny of the epoch's keyword: cosmopolitan. ‘Citizen of the warld’ is the definition of Johnson's Dictionary in 1755, It’s not easy, however, to give a concrete, positive meaning to such citizenship, and a few years later, in 1762, the Académie Frangaise follows the opposite strategy; a negative definition: cosmopolitan is he ‘gui n ‘adore point de patrie’, who adopts no country ar all. Instead of belonging everywhere, he belongs nowhere; and if Johnson aimed at including the entire planet, the Académie proceeds by contrast to erase all national states. “To aim av the good of mankind’, writes Leibniz, ‘the cosme- politan will have 1 be indifferent to what characterjzes a Frenchman, ora German. But what may ‘mankind’ mean, in the conctete context of cight- eenth-century Europe? Fatally, it will be the idealized version—abstract and normative at once—of a national literature of unique power and ambition. Isn't the Répudligue des Lereres after all the legitimate heir of the Res publica Christiana, just as French is replacing Latin as the sacred language of the spirit? “The classical age’, wrises Paul Van Tieghem, ‘coincides with the literary hegem- ony of France: ic begins with it, it ends wit . The French spirit embodies to such an extent the claswical ideal that, in several #0 Leibniz's passage is deawn from a 1697 lenet, reported hy Thomas J Schlererh, The Caumepoliian Adeal in Enligheentient Thougdt, Notre Dame 1977, PR exiv—nary.16 Distant Reading European countries, classical and French will become synonyms.” French literary hegemony, then; nor literary only, asthe Napoleonic wars will poing out, It’s the last attempt to make Enrope one. impos my, upon ithe same wniformicy of navional culrures which Benjamin Constant denounces in his teact on the spirit of conquest, The atcempt does not succeed, obviously; but it is nonetheless imterest- ing that it was scill posstble 10 conceive it, ar more precisely: that it was possible far Fraace to conceive it. Because France plays indeed a unique role in the cultural history of Europe. Erich Aucebach: The preponderance of Ramance materials in Mimesis is due ro the face that—on a European scale—Romanee literauuces are in the Breat majority of cases tuore representative rhan Germanic ones, In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the lead is undoubtedly France's. and Ialy’s for the two following ones; during the seventeenth ceneury it returns to France, ane it stays there for the following century and for the nineteenth century as well, at least for what concems the gensts and developmenc of modern realis One may disagree on details here, but hardly on the general picture. A great nariona/ mechaniem, engaged in ‘civilizing’ its interior, and brilliam. cosniopofiran enterprise, read ane imitated everywhere, French literature hes indeed played a unique cole in European history—because it has played wich unique brilliance (and luck) om the continental chequerboard. The reason for its success, in other words, lies less in whar France ‘is’, chan in whae it is i respect 10 orkers. Because France is a great nation state, first of all, and this Bives iran edge over [taly—its closest rival during the Middle Ages—and over the German territories. As for Spain and England, 2) Paul Van Tieghem, Miuire tieeraire de ¢ urope et de PAmerique, Paris 146, p. 67, 22° Erich Auerbach, ‘Bpilegomena au /Mimesis', Remanische Forschungen, 1954, pp. SL, Modern European Literature: A Geographical Sketch 7 it is more populated than they are, and its language has a wider currency: it has a wider audienee—and a wider audience means more space, more life, more mventiveness, more forms. And then position, decisive when books and ideas move still very slowly: France is right there, a1 the contre of rhe great weseetn ‘X’. To go trom Spain to Holland and Germany, or from England ra Italy, one must cross it, let it know of all new ideas, and spread its influcnce in the opposite direction. Then again, a literary tradition unencumbered by a Dante oc a Shakespeare, a Gocthe or a sigio de oro: tree from the weight of unrepeatable models, French literature is more agile than others, it plays on morc rables, always ready to place its bet on the novelties that crop up in the European space. And nally, a greac nation state, yes, but never hegemonic in the political or economic arena; this erernal second best, always under pressure, may well have overinvested in the realm of culure, in the hope of finding there the extra stimuli necessary to succeed in the European rivalry, There is then stil] anowter reason, and T shall return to ir soon, 5. THE Novelistic Revotetion Where does che European novel begin? In Spain, with the explora- Uons of the pieares and che irony of Zon Quixete... In France, with its brilliam anatumy of passions... In England (and Germany), with the sober simplicity of spiritual autobiography . . . la baroque adventures, which abound in Italy and elsewhere... Oc maybe in Holland, in the luminous, lively everydayness of Vermeer, or the serious, withdrawn visages of Rembrandt . 23 The ‘auer hypothesis, quite dear to the writer of these pages. will have m ‘wait for another occasion. in a discussion of the origins of the nuvel, however, the presence of two Dutchmen is far from casual. The novel's main topic the hourgenis private sphere—tkes its definitive form in sevemeenth-cenmury Holland, which is also, for over a century, the economic centre of the world, It woud be perfectly logical, then, if the novel were tn originatein Holland except that, as-we know, this was uot in the least Uicecase. And why not? Perhaps, precisely