Scott Sprenger
122
of which the surface level is shaped by a deeper, involuntary layer of
habit or emotion.
3
Consider, for instance, the examples of archaic or fragmented
consciousnesses that Balzac presents as being “en ruines”. Most
prominent are, of course, nobles or provincials who remain attached to
their archaic traditions although they live, often unwittingly, in modern environments. Balzac metaphorizes the ancient dimension of such
characters by using words such as “antique”, “reliques”, “débris”,
“fantômes”, or “mort-vivants”. The countess, Stéphanie de Vandières
(in Adieu) whose collapse into madness follows traumatic separation
from her pre-revolutionary world, or the ultras of Cabinet des antiques, considered by Balzac as “antiques” because they refuse to
modernize, represent this type. Parallel, however, to characters explicitly labelled as “antiques” are others who claim to welcome modernity
(republicans, scientists, philosophers, artists, businessman, etc.), yet
who are nonetheless animated by residual habits and reflexes, analogous to a living fossil. Their otherness, repressed within the modern
self and abandoned by the rationalist human sciences of the period, is
the object that Balzac wishes to reconstruct through the new science
of “archéologie morale”.
4
Balzac understood that this interior moral reality was purely
illusory from a rationalist or materialist point of view. But unlike the
“official” scientists of his time, he was prepared to consider “real” that
which others considered pure illusion or abstraction. Put differently,
moral archaeology permitted Balzac to study human reality by adopting a sociological or anthropological approach, and thus to determine
culturally-determined causes of behavioural effects. To the extent that
many of Balzac’s contemporaries remained fixated on obsolete cultural or religious illusions, and to the extent that these fixations caused
real (i.e. observable) psychopathologies, Balzac believed it necessary
to invent a new human science capable of examining these “imaginary” phenomena from an analytical or scientific point of view.
The theme of repression, internal otherness, de l’insu, etc.
evokes the unconscious. The Balzacian unconscious is not yet, how___________________________
3 See my article, “Balzac, archéologue de la conscience”, Archéomanie: La mémoire
en ruines, ed. by Valérie-Angélique Deshoulières and Pascal Vacher (Clermont
Ferrand: Presses, Universitaires Blaise Pascal, CRLMC, 2000), pp. 97-114.
4 I extrapolate this term from the syntagm “archéologue moral” found in the opening
pages of the novel, Béatrix.
122
of which the surface level is shaped by a deeper, involuntary layer of
habit or emotion.
3
Consider, for instance, the examples of archaic or fragmented
consciousnesses that Balzac presents as being “en ruines”. Most
prominent are, of course, nobles or provincials who remain attached to
their archaic traditions although they live, often unwittingly, in modern environments. Balzac metaphorizes the ancient dimension of such
characters by using words such as “antique”, “reliques”, “débris”,
“fantômes”, or “mort-vivants”. The countess, Stéphanie de Vandières
(in Adieu) whose collapse into madness follows traumatic separation
from her pre-revolutionary world, or the ultras of Cabinet des antiques, considered by Balzac as “antiques” because they refuse to
modernize, represent this type. Parallel, however, to characters explicitly labelled as “antiques” are others who claim to welcome modernity
(republicans, scientists, philosophers, artists, businessman, etc.), yet
who are nonetheless animated by residual habits and reflexes, analogous to a living fossil. Their otherness, repressed within the modern
self and abandoned by the rationalist human sciences of the period, is
the object that Balzac wishes to reconstruct through the new science
of “archéologie morale”.
4
Balzac understood that this interior moral reality was purely
illusory from a rationalist or materialist point of view. But unlike the
“official” scientists of his time, he was prepared to consider “real” that
which others considered pure illusion or abstraction. Put differently,
moral archaeology permitted Balzac to study human reality by adopting a sociological or anthropological approach, and thus to determine
culturally-determined causes of behavioural effects. To the extent that
many of Balzac’s contemporaries remained fixated on obsolete cultural or religious illusions, and to the extent that these fixations caused
real (i.e. observable) psychopathologies, Balzac believed it necessary
to invent a new human science capable of examining these “imaginary” phenomena from an analytical or scientific point of view.
The theme of repression, internal otherness, de l’insu, etc.
evokes the unconscious. The Balzacian unconscious is not yet, how___________________________
3 See my article, “Balzac, archéologue de la conscience”, Archéomanie: La mémoire
en ruines, ed. by Valérie-Angélique Deshoulières and Pascal Vacher (Clermont
Ferrand: Presses, Universitaires Blaise Pascal, CRLMC, 2000), pp. 97-114.
4 I extrapolate this term from the syntagm “archéologue moral” found in the opening
pages of the novel, Béatrix.