Histoire littéraire et mémoire nationale 1

The object of this article is to analyze the birth of literary history defined as the awareness of an evolving body of a nation's works and writers. Note is taken of the part played in the process by monarchical power, which saw in its role as guardian of the country's culture a means of asserting legitimacy, and attention is given to the evolution of the status of writers and their idea of their mission.

To illustrate his thesis, the author examines the publication in 1733 of the Histoire littéraire de la France by the Benedictine monks of Saint Maur. He defines its aims and its approach, demonstrates therein the emerging sense of a national culture and discusses the project's political implications. The commercial failure of the Histoire littéraire belies its overall importance, for the movement it effectively began led to the compulsory teaching of literary history in the place of rhetoric, to the establishment of a national pantheon of writers and to confrontations and concerns whose significance far surpassed the mere accumulation of a body of knowledge.     

Écriture, institution et société le travail littéraire dans la Compagnie de jésus en France (1620–1720)

For the past few years, a renewal of historical studies has begun on the intellectual work of the old Company of Jesus. In this paper, we would like to emphasize the place and the process of literary activities in France between 1620 and 1720, by describing the attempts to create an intellectual apostolate. Two approaches have been applied here: on the one hand, from an institutional point of view, we will estimate the importance of intellectual work in the spectrum of responsibilities inside the Congregation; on the other hand, the analysis based on several antijesuit polemics will point to the social communication of the Order.     

Teaching “notre littérature”: The Place of la littérature québécoise in the Curriculum in Quebec

Recent calls for a greater emphasis on the teaching of Quebec literature from primary school to cégep once more link the teaching of Quebec literature with the survival of a language and a culture. The current debate echoes those which have taken place over the last 100 years, both under the denominational system of education and since the Révolution tranquille. Different pedagogical and ideological factors have influenced not only whether Francophone Canadian literature has been taught, but also what has been taught and how it has been taught. Anxieties about the status, history and definition of “notre littérature” have recurred throughout the century, as have concerns about the relationship between the literature of Quebec and the literature of metropolitan France. This article will discuss the teaching of literature in Quebec since 1900 to conclude with a consideration of the teaching of Francophone Canadian literature in Quebec today.     

L'impensé du marché

The historiography of the United States in the xviii^th and beginning of the xix^th centuries stresses the key role of market development in the economic growth of the area. Various historical schools argue over the role of moral or household economic attitudes, and over the rhythm and extent of market integration. But because of the peculiar chronology of the economic development of the United States, compared to Great-Britain, it has long been assumed that this market integration, more than any technological progress, has been at the root of the industrial revolution and of industrial capitalism. The concept of market, however, has never been itself criticized and historicized. This paper offers a historically relevant modelization of merchant activity, and offers some hypotheses on the transition from this model to industrial capitalism.     

Histoire du fidéisme, histoire du scepticisme?

«The history of scepticism, the history of fideism?». It is a matter of pondering over the relevance of scepticism’s classification as fideism which Richard H. Popkin establishes in his work:The History of scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza. The calling into question of the link between doubt and belief, and more generally between scepticism and religion, leads to contest the role of religious faith in what is presented by Popkin as the sceptical search for truth. The aim of this criticism is to propose a more conceptual approach to modern scepticism which, unlike Popkin’s historical approach (founded on the consideration of the origin of modern scepticism, the religious crisis of the Renaissance), includes the ethical aspects of this philosophy which are usually and unfortunately neglected.     

Les fondements d’une phénoménologie de la littérature selon Jan Patočka

Le phénoménologue tchèque Jan Pato?ka, auteur d’une phénoménologie asubjective défendant la thèse d’un procès asubjectif de l’apparaître (d’une autonomie du phénomène par rapport à l’ego), a accordé au problème des relations nécessaires et difficiles que la philosophie entretient en son sein même avec la littérature une attention particulière qui l’a conduit à poser les fondements d’une phénoménologie de la littérature centrée autour de l’idée d’un asubjectivisme de l’écrivain. Nous suivrons ici deux axes de réflexion connexes: premièrement, nous montrerons pourquoi et comment Pato?ka restaure le vocabulaire et la vision de l’homme propres au mythe et reprend ce qu’il aperçoit comme le fondement de la tragédie pour élaborer une nouvelle compréhension du phénomène de l’existence comme mouvement. Deuxièmement, nous décrirons le rôle que joue l’écrivain moderne à une époque marquée par la fragmentation de la vie. Car l’écrivain qui édifie une “littérature métaphysique” a le privilège, selon Pato?ka, d’être “l’administrateur propre et originel de l’intégralité de la vie et de la totalité universelle”, il est ainsi une sorte de “quasi-phénoménologue” dont la philosophie ne peut se passer si elle veut saisir ces phénomènes qui, sans être purement et simplement subjectifs, ne peuvent néanmoins être réduits à l’objectivité du concept.