Revolutionary Emerson: On Some of the Political Aspects of Emerson's French Reception in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
Résumé
Upon attracting the attention of French critics in the 1840s, Emerson's works underwent
literary review and were assayed in comparison to continental and British literature. However, his
reception in France did not only entail literary takes on his works. It was immediately laden with
politics. The essays of the American writer were often used by French critics as springboards to
take strong stances on French current affairs. Among them was Émile Montégut, a budding Revue
des Deux Mondes critic. In 1847, Montégut argued in an article for the Revue that Emerson stood
as a more-than-welcome individualist beacon in an age overtaken by what he saw as the tyrannical
democratic “mass” born of the 1789 Revolution. For him, Emerson's 'doctrine' could help restore
and preserve what he called an 'aristocracy of character.' However, after the watershed of the 1848
February Revolution, which resulted in the advent of the Second Republic, Montégut's stance
became less philosophical: Discussing Emerson's freshly published Representative Men in 1850,
Montégut eventually called for the advent of a great man. In so doing, not only did he echo the
election of Louis Napoléon Bonaparte as president of the Second Republic, but he somewhat
anticipated the upcoming demise of the Republic following the 1851 coup.