French Literature Reviews - 2026
B. Didier, L'Infâme et le sublime. Some Representations of the Sacred from the Enlightenment to Romanticism
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas
Bibliographic reference: Béatrice Didier, L'infâme et le sublime. Quelques représentations du sacré des Lumières au Romantisme, Honoré Champion, "Dialogue des arts" series, 2017.
EAN13: 9782745334909.
394 pages
80 EUR
Publisher's overview:
Whether shadowed by fanaticism or, conversely, elevated toward the sublime through art, the sacred is a prominent presence in the literature, painting, and music of the XVIIIe and XIXe centuries. However, a profound shift occurs between the Enlightenment and Romanticism, which this essay sets out to analyze. Stripping the sacred of its religious dimension, Enlightenment philosophers saw in it, at best, an aesthetic value. Early Romanticism undertook the reverse journey: starting from aesthetics to restore the metaphysical foundation of the sacred. From Diderot's Salons to the Génie du Christianisme, this volume examines various works that trace this evolving trajectory through the pivotal era of the French Revolution, with all its nuances and variations.
Béatrice Didier, Professor Emerita at the École Normale Supérieure (Ulm), is the author of numerous studies on Enlightenment music, Diderot, Senancour, Stendhal, and early Romanticism. She also directs the scholarly edition of the complete works of Chateaubriand and George Sand for Honoré Champion.
The transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century marks a profound transformation in how European culture conceptualized the divine and the transcendent. During the Enlightenment, philosophical inquiry frequently subjected religious traditions to rigorous critique, often reinterpreting sacred motifs through the emerging frameworks of aesthetics and secular philosophy. As the period of Romanticism developed, writers and artists sought to reclaim metaphysical dimensions, frequently turning to nature, artistic creation, and subjective experience to articulate a renewed sense of spiritual depth. This intellectual trajectory unfolded against the backdrop of immense social and political upheaval, notably the French Revolution, which fundamentally reshaped cultural expression and the ideological functions of art.
Béatrice Didier's study examines these shifting paradigms by analyzing works across literature, painting, and music from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The volume explores how authors and artists navigate the transition from Enlightenment perspectives, such as those found in Diderot's aesthetic writings, toward the early Romantic revival exemplified by Chateaubriand's Génie du Christianisme. Readers interested in the history of ideas, French literature of the Enlightenment and Romantic periods, and the intersection of aesthetics with religion may find this volume a relevant contribution to nineteenth-century and eighteenth-century studies.