Holiness is not always religious, unless the republic is a new religion. This tension crystallizes in a figure, that of the “secular saint,” which emerges in literature throughout the 19th century.my century under the impetus of social romanticism, a movement at the crossroads of literature and politics. Magalie Myoupo, professor of French language and literature at the University of Lorraine, dedicated her thesis to this imagination. Supported by the Sorbonne in 2018, it has just been published under the title Secular Saints. Exemplary figures of 19th century literaturemy century (Printed by the University of Lyon, 2023, 256 pages, 20 euros).
How was the idea of secular holiness born, the representations of which you study in 19th century literature?my century ?
Magalie Myopo: The expression of a “holiness” “Laico” is part of everyday language, but it has always surprised me because it brings together two a priori irreconcilable notions. As I was interested in the links between literature and spirituality, I wanted to explore this notion as part of my thesis to trace its emergence and evolution throughout the 19th century.my century, that is, the appropriation by the Republicans of a Catholic aesthetic through the genre of the story of the saint, hagiography.
How does this transfer of the model of holiness develop?
After the French Revolution, evangelization appeared to the Church and to certain Catholic authors as a crucial tool to reestablish the framework of the monarchy. The first major manifestation of this attempt was signed by Chateaubriand, with The genius of Christianityin 1802. The Restoration (1815-1830) corresponds in particular to an intense moment of affirmation of this Christian heritage, which was then expressed under the July Monarchy (1830-1848) through a policy directed towards the people, very focused on religion.
This boom was accompanied by a strong reaction against the Catholic Church from the 1840s onwards, where figures such as the historian Jules Michelet, the poet Alphonse de Lamartine and the writer George Sand began to invest the hagiographic imagination.
Two major trends then emerge: for historians, the challenge is to develop a new education based on a principle of emancipation and not imitation; for writers, they invert the narrative genre of hagiography by using models such as martyrdom and asceticism, which will allow the figures of the people to be sublime.
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