Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Robespierre's outlook
- Part III Robespierre's politics
- Part IV Robespierre in retrospect
- 11 Carlyle's seagreen Robespierre and the perilous delights of picturesque history
- 12 Robespierre through the Chartist looking-glass
- 13 Rehabilitating Robespierre: Albert Mathiez and Georges Lefebvre as defenders of the Incorruptible
- 14 Robespierre in French fiction
- 15 The representation of Robespierre in European drama
- Part V Conclusion
- Index
14 - Robespierre in French fiction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Robespierre's outlook
- Part III Robespierre's politics
- Part IV Robespierre in retrospect
- 11 Carlyle's seagreen Robespierre and the perilous delights of picturesque history
- 12 Robespierre through the Chartist looking-glass
- 13 Rehabilitating Robespierre: Albert Mathiez and Georges Lefebvre as defenders of the Incorruptible
- 14 Robespierre in French fiction
- 15 The representation of Robespierre in European drama
- Part V Conclusion
- Index
Summary
It hardly needs to be said that the demands of historical writing and those of fiction are quite different. In his Elements de literature, Marmontel wrote:
Of all characteristics, the most vital to history is, then, truth - and absorbing truth. But truth implies learning, discernment, sincerity, impartiality. Now learning is unsure, discernment difficult and sincerity rare; and complete detachment, that freedom of the spirit and the soul, that utter impartiality which is the hallmark of a faithful witness, is scarcely ever to be found.
It might be supposed that writers of fiction would work according to different criteria. Certainly, truth could hardly be a requirement and yet, in the eighteenth century at least, theorists (and Marmontel was just one of many in this respect) claimed that fiction requires a solid foundation, one that is based on truth. Quoting Marmontel again, we read:
Fiction, then, must be the representation of truth, but truth established by the choice and mix of colours and the characteristics which it draws from nature. There is no picture so perfect in the natural ordering of things that the imagination might still not add to it … History has few subjects which poetry is not obliged to correct and embellish, to adapt it to its medium.
Clearly, history and fiction have common interests and may share similar working practices. But the subjects treated, the emphasis and the aims of each will differ. The French Revolution, to speak generally for a moment, is likely to inspire writers: Dickens, of course, and, more recently, Hilary Mantel, whose A Place of Greater Safety was published in 1992.
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- Information
- Robespierre , pp. 224 - 236Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999