French Literature Reviews - 2026
Anne-Sophie Morel, Chateaubriand and the Violence of History in the Mémoires d’outre-tombe
Novel and Narrative Prose
Review published in Acta Fabula (May 2015, vol. 16, no. 5): “Violence in the 19th Century, or the Creation of History & the Historian” by Dimitri Julien.
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Anne-Sophie Morel, Chateaubriand et la violence de l’histoire dans les Mémoires d’outre-tombe
Paris: Honoré Champion, coll. “Romantisme et modernités”, 2014.
EAN 9782745326386.
- 672 pages. Paperback
- 115 EUR
Publisher's overview:
Formless violence constantly shapes the writing of the Mémoires d’outre-tombe. It provides an effective perspective through which to examine and refine the memorialist's poetics, his aesthetic and political thought, and the structures of his imagination viewed within a historical framework. Exiled from his own past by the “river of blood” of the Revolution, Chateaubriand re-enters historicity through imagination and fantasy. In order to condemn and attempt to exorcise the trauma he suffered, the memorialist develops strategies of engagement and protection, pioneering a specific rhetoric of violence. Its diverse representations thus build a vast fresco that transfigures historical facts to grant them new meaning—revealing of their author's ideology—and invite us to view violence not only within history, but also as the very driving principle of History itself.
Holder of the Agrégation in Modern Letters and a PhD in French Language and Literature, Anne-Sophie Morel is an Associate Professor at the University of Savoie.
François-René de Chateaubriand's monumental Mémoires d'outre-tombe occupy a central place in nineteenth-century French literature, bridging the decline of the Ancien Régime and the emergence of modern historical consciousness. As a foundational work of French romantic autobiography and political reflection, the memoirs record the profound disruptions caused by the French Revolution and its aftermath. Readers interested in nineteenth-century French literature, romantic autobiography, and the intersection of politics and aesthetics in Chateaubriand's work may find this publication relevant to their inquiries.