Emile Souvestre: Breton, Christian, and Republican in nineteenth century France
Title of Document: EMILE SOUVESTRE: BRETON, CHRISTIAN, AND REPUBLICAN IN NINETEENTH CENTURY FRANCE Cara Anne Gadel, Master of Arts, 2007 Directed By: Professor Donald M. G. Sutherland, Department of History While scholars of French history tend to divide nineteenth century French intellectuals into two camps anti-clerical leftwing Republican Revolutionaries versus rightwing Catholic traditionalists, Emile Souvestre represented a middle ground, and perhaps better represented the average French person as well. Souvestre, a prolific nineteenth century Breton writer, was a devout Christian and a Republican. This thesis explores the forces of regionalism, religion, and politics on Souvestre and his writings. EMILE SOUVESTRE: BRETON, CHRISTIAN, AND REPUBLICAN IN NINETEENTH CENTURY FRANCE.
Chateaubriand and Destutt de Tracy: Defining Religious and Secular Polarities in France at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century
Within ten years of the execution of Louis XVI two general and opposed features of the Old Regime, Catholic Christianity and Enlightenment rationality, were globally idealized by two authors—both of them former aristocrats— François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) and Antoine-Louis-Claude Destutt de Tracy (1754–1836). No two participants in the complex discussion of religion and secularism that took place at the highest levels of government and Parisian intellectual life at the end of the First Republic and during the Napoleonic regime better represented on the one hand unconditional nostalgia for Catholicism, and on the other uncompromising intellectual pursuit of the secular scientific ideal. Though it has become customary to oppose the Neo-Christian intellectuals Chateaubriand, De Maistre, De Bonald, and Ballanche, to the Idéologues Destutt de Tracy, Cabanis, Maine de Biran, and others, I believe that this opposition can be clarified if the extremes represented by Chateaubriand and De Tracy are better defined. In other words, a clear definition of the personal metaphysics—thoughts and feelings—of Chateaubriand and De Tracy should establish the polarities of intellectual temperament that characterized the Napoleonic era.
The Origins of the Foundation Stories Genre in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Eastern Mediterranean
This article examines two types of foundation narrative prevalent in the biblical literature in light of as-yet-undiscussed parallels from ancient Greek and Mediterranean texts. The first type, embodied in the Genesis narratives and Greek genealogical traditions, portrays the founders as leaving a distant land to settle peacefully in a new land. The second is exemplified by the central hexateuchal theme of the Israelites’ migration to Canaan by dispossessing the native population as well as the Dorian migration traditions. Several factors indicate that the foundation story genre also became central and foundational in other small kingdoms around the Mediterranean—as indicated, for example, by the Phoenician–Luwian inscriptions referring to bt Mpš/Mopsus and related classical sources. The popularity of the genre in the ancient Mediterranean is striking in light of the fact that, while experiencing tribal migrations and wanderings, the great Mesopotamian and Egyptian kingdoms never represented themselves as “immigrants.” It is suggested that this genre may have emerged with the rise of the new, small-scale kingdoms in the Mediterranean basin toward the end of the second millennium b.c.e. The Phoenician and Greek colonization enterprises of the first third of the first millennium b.c.e. in particular increased awareness of the newly emerging states and focused attention on ethnic identity.