The Secret Mirror: Literary Form and History in Tocqueville's "Recollections'' 9781501743344

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THE SECRET MIRROR

%

By the same author The Secularization of History

THE SECRET MIRROR Literary

Form and History

in

Tocqueville’s Recollections

L. E.

Shiner

Cornell University Press ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright All rights reserved.

thereof,

©

1988 by Cornell University

Except for brief quotations

must not be reproduced

in

in a review, this

any form without permission

book, or parts in

writing from

the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca,

First

New

York 14850.

published 1988 by Cornell University Press.

International Standard

Book Number 0-8014-2150-0

Library of Congress Catalog Card

Number 88-3679

Printed in the United States of America Librarians: Library of Congress cataloging information

appears on the

last

page of the book.

The paper in this book is acid-free and meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

For Catherine

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2016

https://archive.org/details/secretmirrorliteOOshin

3 1

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

ix

Chronology of 1848 1

2

xiii

Rhetoric, Reading, and History A Note on the Text 1

Genre The

13

Secret Mirror

Portraits

1

22.

Tableaux

28

Aphorisms, Anecdotes, and Modes 3

Plot Chronicle

Selection

42

Duration

45

Genre

75

Code

78

Blanqui’s Linen

A

79

Table of Virtues and Vices

Differences

Ambiguities 5

40

52

Plot versus

4

32

40

Plot, Story,

Order

i

96

97

Voice Recollection

86

112 117 Vll

Vlll

Contents

Commentary

Wisdom

1

24

128

Reading Instructions and Impersonal Narration Style

132

Presence

6

135

Reference

139

The Chronicle of 1848 The Class Struggles

in

139 France

Sentimental Education

7

147

158

Authorship Democracy

175 America

in

175

The Old Regime and the Revolution

“A 8

130

Fortnight

in the

Wilderness”

180

191

Literature and Truth Appendix:

A Summary

199

of Tocqueville’s

Recollections

207

Index

221

1

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I

am

my colleagues J. Holroyd, who read

deeply grateful to

Strozier,

and Bruce

developed.

J.

Michael Lennon, Charles B. the entire manuscript as

it

Michael Lennon has offered many valuable suggestions

on later drafts. The project was begun while I was on a sabbatical leave from Sangamon State University in the spring of 1983 am grateful to the university for its support and to the University of California at Santa Cruz for a visiting research appointment, especially to Hayden White, whose conversations have been an important stimulus to my work. In 1983 an NEH Summer Seminar at Princeton University with Alvin Kernan on literature and society contributed to several parts of the book, and I deeply appreciate Professor Kernan’s generosity and encouragement. In the summer of 1986 I had the opportunity to participate in an NEH Seminar on Erench classical literature at Harvard University under the direction of Jules Brody. The resources of the Harvard libraries and the experience of a close philological reading of seventeenth-century texts offered an occasion to review and modify my translations and analyses of key passages in the Souvenirs. Monique Benesvie of Harvard provided crucial advice on the translation of several terms. I am also grateful to Marjorie Wynn and the Beinecke .

Library of Yale University for granting

me

access to the Tocqueville

and manuscripts in their possession. Given the nature of this project, it was important

letters

to see the original

M. allowed me

manuscript of the Souvenirs. The descendants of Tocqueville,

comte and

Mme

la

comtesse d’Herouville, not only

consult the manuscript but graciously received IX

me and

le

to

offered an

Acknowledgments informative tour of the chateau de Tocqueville where part of the

Souvenirs was written. In Paris, Andre Jardin, the leading Tocqueville

Commission

scholar and secretary of the Comite de travail of the

nationale pour I’edition des oeuvres d’Alexis de Tocqueville, gave

generously of his time in consultation, providing

many

insights

and

points of confirmation beyond the invaluable material in his definitive

biography of Tocqueville. While discuss

my

project with Paul Ricoeur,

and scholar over the years this

in Paris

is

I

also

whose

had the opportunity

to

inspiration as a teacher

part of the deeper source of the ideas in

book.

Many

others have provided encouragement and valuable sugges-

on specific points: George Agich, Royce Jones, Hans Kellner, Dominick LaCapra, Richard Palmer, Eric Springsted, Richard T. Vann, and Daniel Wilson. Daniel and Carol Wilson provided a peaceful and supportive atmosphere for work one summer at Muhlenburg tions

College.

Among

those at

Sangamon

State University

through innumerable drafts with patience and

who

skill

have labored

are Adalin Bor-

man, Deborah McTaggart, Samme Schramm, and Tonia Wright. Elizabeth Pera and her student staff at Sangamon were helpful in many ways.

I

am

especially grateful to Jacqueline Wright,

final drafts

who prepared

the

of the manuscript.

Portions of Chapter 3 appeared in History and Theory 25 (1986) and parts of Chapter 4 in The Psychohistory Review 14 (1985). I am grateful for permission to use

them

Since finishing this manuscript

come

across

them

earlier,

I

here.

have read two works

that,

had

would have enhanced my discussion of

I

the

and history in Chapter 6. Thomas G. Pavel’s Fictional Worlds (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986) contains a rich discussion of the relation of fiction and nonfiction which integrates recent philosophical work on fictional discourse with perspectives from literary theory. Barbara Foley’s Telling the Truth: The Theory and Practice of Documentary Fiction (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986) deals with the issue of the boundary between fiction and fact through a Marxist analysis of documentary fiction, including relation of fiction

the historical novel.

My

one regret as I finish this manuscript is that neither of my parents, who encouraged me in its completion, has lived to see its publication.

The dual

subject matter of the

book

reflects in

microcosm

XI

Acknowledgments

some

of the distinctive contributions each

made

to

my

life:

the interest

and biography of Ernest Antrim Shiner (1898—1985); the love of French language and literature of Nelda Downtain Shiner in history

(1909-1987). L. E.

Springfield, Illinois

Shiner

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i39, 146-47, 174See also Literature

Uspensky, Boris, 114

T.,

140

99—102

Veyne, Paul, 2 18

28—29

Structural analysis, 86—87, 92Style, 17,

21—22, 34—

Tragedy, 56-57, 72.-77, 96-97, 150.

Variants, ii — 12, 5 n. 6,

5,

65-68, 213-14 self-portrait, 18-19, 2.8, 65-71, 94 Tocqueville, Herve de, 200 Tocqueville, Marie de, 93, 103 Todorov, Tzvetan, 41 n. 2

Vann, Richard

n. 3

Stendhal (Henri Bayle),

parliamentary career, 35, 54-62.,

Sauzet, Jean-Pierre, 26, 54 Satire,

69-71, 214-19

132-35

Tableau, 36, no, 183, 198 moral, i8, 29-32, 51, 86, 196 multiple meanings of, 17—18

Voice, 3-4, 1 13-17, 201 in Class Struggles, 150—52 in

in

The Old Regime, 185-88 Sentimental Education, 171-73

See also Discursive function

White, Hayden,

i,

2 n. 2, 57, 141 n. 3

as painting, 29,

Women, 93—94, 103—6

as

Workers, 30—32, 82—86, 90—91, 98— 102, 107-9, i54> 156-57 Worthy versus unworthy, 25—28, 9293, 106

as

180-82 picture, 79—86, 180—82 table, 86-87

tableaux de Paris, 29, 32 tableaux vivant, 28-32, 36-37, 195

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shiner, L. E. (Larry E.),

The

1934—

secret mirror: literary

form and history

in Tocqueville’s

Recollections/L, E. Shiner. p.

cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 0—8014-2150-0 I.

(alk.

paper)

Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1805—1859. Souvenirs.

Revolution, 1848 art. 4.

— Historiography.

Autobiography.

DC270.T6559S47

5.

1988

3.

2.

— History — February 1805-1859 — Literary

France

Tocqueville, Alexis de,

and history. I. Title. 944.07'o92'4 dci9 88-3679

Literature

—