Scott Sprenger
124
logiquement à l’ensemble” (XII, 283). In the “Avant-Propos” of La
Comédie humaine, Balzac presents himself as “l’archéologue du
mobilier social [cherchant] à surprendre ‘le sens caché’ dans cet
immense assemblage de figures, de passions, et d’événements” (I, 52).
Likewise, in Béatrix, the narrator explicitly compares his function to
that of the moral archaeologist, “[qui observe] les hommes au lieu
d’observer les pierres” (II, 8). The opening pages of La Recherche de
l’absolu offer the clearest exposition of the theoretical and methodological stakes of Balzac’s moral archaeology, in his innovative analogy between the archaeological reconstruction of a civilization from
its material remains and of the unknown, forgotten or repressed parts
of an individual psyche:
[L]a plupart des observateurs peuvent reconstruire les nations ou les individus dans
toute la vérité de leurs habitudes, d’après les restes de leurs monuments publics ou
par l’examen de leurs reliques domestiques. L’archéologie est à la nature sociale ce
que l’anatomie comparée est à la nature organisée. Une mosaïque révèle toute une
société, comme un squelette d’ichthyosaure sous-entend toute une création. De part
et d’autre, tout se déduit, tout s’enchaîne. La cause fait deviner un effet, comme
chaque effet permet de remonter à une cause. Le savant ressuscite ainsi jusqu’aux
verrues des vieux âges. (X, 657)
Balzac’s conception of modern consciousness as “stratified”
ruins owes much to the rise of scientific archaeology in the early nineteenth century, but is also grounded in observation of the layers of culture generated by the rapid succession of French post-revolutionary
regimes. He illustrates the process of fragmentation and internal repression that contemporary consciousnesses experienced in crossing
the epochal threshold from Old Regime to modernity.
Balzac’s archaeological theory of consciousness thus anticipates Freud’s layered view of the psyche. Passionate about archaeology himself, Freud openly declared in Constructions in Analysis its
importance in his invention of psychoanalytic methodology and narrative.
5 Freud and Balzac differ, however, in that the repression shaping
the Balzacian unconscious is not (only) sexual or Oedipal; it is the repression of Catholic habits and aspiration by modernity and the forced
passage of traditional consciousness into the post-revolutionary order
that causes internal separation. To apply psychoanalysis to Balzac
___________________________
5 Sigmund Freud, “Constructions dans l’analyse”, in Résultats, idées, problèmes, 6th
ed., (Paris: PUF, 2005), p. 271.
124
logiquement à l’ensemble” (XII, 283). In the “Avant-Propos” of La
Comédie humaine, Balzac presents himself as “l’archéologue du
mobilier social [cherchant] à surprendre ‘le sens caché’ dans cet
immense assemblage de figures, de passions, et d’événements” (I, 52).
Likewise, in Béatrix, the narrator explicitly compares his function to
that of the moral archaeologist, “[qui observe] les hommes au lieu
d’observer les pierres” (II, 8). The opening pages of La Recherche de
l’absolu offer the clearest exposition of the theoretical and methodological stakes of Balzac’s moral archaeology, in his innovative analogy between the archaeological reconstruction of a civilization from
its material remains and of the unknown, forgotten or repressed parts
of an individual psyche:
[L]a plupart des observateurs peuvent reconstruire les nations ou les individus dans
toute la vérité de leurs habitudes, d’après les restes de leurs monuments publics ou
par l’examen de leurs reliques domestiques. L’archéologie est à la nature sociale ce
que l’anatomie comparée est à la nature organisée. Une mosaïque révèle toute une
société, comme un squelette d’ichthyosaure sous-entend toute une création. De part
et d’autre, tout se déduit, tout s’enchaîne. La cause fait deviner un effet, comme
chaque effet permet de remonter à une cause. Le savant ressuscite ainsi jusqu’aux
verrues des vieux âges. (X, 657)
Balzac’s conception of modern consciousness as “stratified”
ruins owes much to the rise of scientific archaeology in the early nineteenth century, but is also grounded in observation of the layers of culture generated by the rapid succession of French post-revolutionary
regimes. He illustrates the process of fragmentation and internal repression that contemporary consciousnesses experienced in crossing
the epochal threshold from Old Regime to modernity.
Balzac’s archaeological theory of consciousness thus anticipates Freud’s layered view of the psyche. Passionate about archaeology himself, Freud openly declared in Constructions in Analysis its
importance in his invention of psychoanalytic methodology and narrative.
5 Freud and Balzac differ, however, in that the repression shaping
the Balzacian unconscious is not (only) sexual or Oedipal; it is the repression of Catholic habits and aspiration by modernity and the forced
passage of traditional consciousness into the post-revolutionary order
that causes internal separation. To apply psychoanalysis to Balzac
___________________________
5 Sigmund Freud, “Constructions dans l’analyse”, in Résultats, idées, problèmes, 6th
ed., (Paris: PUF, 2005), p. 271.