FROM THE CULT OF THE “SELF” TO THE ANCESTOR CULT: TRILOGY THE CULT OF THE SELF BY MAURICE BARRÈS
Journal Title: Studia Litterarum - Year 2016, Vol 1, Issue 1
Abstract
The debut of Maurice Barrès, his trilogy The Cult of the Self immediately won the reader’s attention. In the 1890s, his works evoked increasing interest. His contemporaries read them as a fascinating narrative about the drama of European consciousness and the attempts to overcome this drama. However, after the author’s death, the interest of readers and researchers to his works decreased that may be explained by his fascination with ideas of nationalism, or boulangisme, especially during the war. The writer was accused of nationalism, however his nationalism was but a “replica” of his early ideas about the “culture” of “the self.” According to Barrès, all major themes of his work were reflected in the frst trilogy of The Cult of the Self. Later in his career, revealing the typological similarity of the processes taking place in the inner “self” and within the nation, he wrote about degradation of the “self” and degradation of the nation in parallel. Portraying “the disease of the century” and seeking its recovery, Barrès introduced the theme of the ancestor cult as a means of moral redemption in his late work. The present study of linguistic, cultural, and historical properties of Barrès’s work intends to introduce one of the greatest turn-of-the-century writers into the Russian academic context.
Authors and Affiliations
Vera V. Shervashidze
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP26082
- DOI 10.22455/ 2500-4247-2016-1-1-2-128-139
- Views 702
- Downloads 36
PATERNAL CARE: EMPEROR NICOLAS I IN GOGOL’S FATE
The essay for the frst time highlights the history of a long-term attention and patronage that Еmperor Nicholas I as philanthropist, censor, and reader bestowed on Nikolay Gogol. It shows the increasing interest of the...
“RUSSIAN REVOLUTION WAS PREPARED ON CAPRI...” MICHAIL PERVUKHIN ABOUT A RUSSIAN COLONY ON CAPRI (BASED ON THE A.M. GORKY ARCHIVE)
In his essay “The Russians on Capri” (1924), a Russian journalist Mikhail Pervukhin describes the discovery of Capri by Russian artists and writers before the events of 1905 and the development of the Russian colony on t...
REPRESENTATION OF THE PAST AS THE MAJOR FACTOR OF SELF-IDENTITY IN POST-SOVIET LITERATURE
The essay examines the problem of identity in its implicit relation to the memory of the past on the material of post-Soviet literature. The question of identity or “how to think identity” is and has always been releva...
“The Testament” of XII Pandito Hambo-Lama Dashidorzhi Ithegelov in the Context of Buddhist Philosophy
The article deals with a hitherto unexamined literary text written by a famous Buddhist philosopher and scientist XII Pandito Hambo-Lama Dashidorzhi Itigelov. This text is the last poem by D. Itigelov entitled “The Test...
ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE ON DMITRY MEREZHKOVSKY IN WARSAW
No Abstract