MARC FUMAROLI
AND
PHILIPPE SOLLERS
Literature Between Pas t and Present:
An Exchange
LE
DEBAT:
The interest of a debate between you two lies in exploring
what divides you at the heart of your common love for literature. Marc
Fumaroli, you are an historian of rhetoric and classical literature. Philippe
Sollers, you represent a movement in contemporary literature which has
long been called "avant-garde." You, Marc Fumaroli, hold a pessimistic
view of the current state of
Ii
terature, marked by the exhaus tion of its cre–
ative force . You serve, Philippe Sollers, as a defender and practitioner of
this contemporary literature. This is the first point on which we would
like to learn exactly what your contrasting judgments are.
MARc
FUMAROLI:
Let's begin by agreeing on the definition of the term
"literature." If we go back in time, its meaning is rather wide. In this tra–
ditional sense, literature is not the counterpart of "science" but of
ignorance. It included many genres: history as written by Voltaire or
Michelet; the memoirs of Saint-Simon as well as those of Chateaubriand;
the eloquence of Bossuet or Lacordaire; the poetry of Lafontaine or Hugo,
of Toulet or Claudel; and drama, all types of drama. But it is also the essay:
the philosophic or moral essays of Montaigne or Constant; the literary
criticism of Sainte-Beuve or Bourget; the art criticism of Diderot or
Fromentin; even the great erudition of an Henri Bremond or a Paul
Hazard. Descartes and Claude Bernard, Buffon and Henri Poincare,
whom we would today classify as scientists, all have their appointed place
in French literature. Literature was ultimately the point of convergence of
the most diverse orientations of the spirit, an extended written conversa–
tion which found, most notably in Paris, a social milieu of "honest folk"
to serve as its oxygen. The Iycee of the Third Republic, with its empha–
sis on letters, successfully sought to renew this milieu by admitting the
best sons and daughters of families of modest means. And yet, Sartre and
Barthes attacked this same conversational milieu, which was both nour-
Editor's Note:
This dialogue first appeared as "La Litterature entre son Present et son Passe,"
Marc Fumaroli, Philippe Sollers: un echange, March- April 1994,
Le
Debat.
Translated and reprinted with permission.
