Spatial Structure in Saint-Simonian Poetics
93
The “spatial” idiosyncracies of this passage – visible in its animated
transposition of exotic cities in the place of French regional towns –
are suggestive of how Saint-Simonianism more generally manifests a
certain interplay between utopian and poetic discourse. In this article,
I will argue that the insights which inform such a project of geographical spatial appropriation simultaneously participate in the exploration of new poetic potentialities in more “literary” texts by SaintSimonian authors such as Chevalier and the playwright Charles Duveyrier.
While Saint-Simonian propaganda had invested heavily in
specialist technical literature throughout the 1820s, promoting in particular in the newspapers Le Globe and Le Producteur the civil and
industrial benefits of such subjects as mechanical and civil engineering, under Enfantin the group soon became desirous of a less didactically structured and more generally sensually persuasive presentation
of its programme for development. Enfantin’s name is synonymous
with the group’s cultish retreat to a house belonging to him at Ménilmontant in Paris in 1832. There, Enfantin preached the “rehabilitation
of matter”, that is, a sensual reinvigoration of all those aspects of culture and society that had, in his estimation, fallen under the influence
of Christian asceticism. One of the principal objectives of the retreat
was the writing of the Livre nouveau des Saint-Simoniens, a manuscript intended as a prophetic synthesis of human knowledge. The
work broaches a vast number of themes, reflected in its successive
discussions of the liberation of woman, the potential social applications of electricity, mathematics, stereotomy and physiology, and the
histories of language and literature. In the manuscript’s record of a
conversation between Enfantin and Chevalier, the former explains his
desire to develop a more sensually appealing scientific model, or “science attrayante”. In order to appreciate properly the benefits of this
science, Enfantin says: “Il faut […] que nous entrions dans le sens des
imaginaires”.
4 The modus operandi of the “science attrayante” can be
observed in the behaviour of select individuals:
Or, il y a des hommes qui ont la propriété de mettre ainsi leur vie en dehors, dont
l’existence se passe à combiner des modifications pareilles d’un objet, d’un être, sur
___________________________
4 Émile Barrault and others, Le Livre nouveau des Saint-Simoniens, ed. by Philippe
Régnier (Tusson: Éditions du Lérot, 1991), p. 184.
93
The “spatial” idiosyncracies of this passage – visible in its animated
transposition of exotic cities in the place of French regional towns –
are suggestive of how Saint-Simonianism more generally manifests a
certain interplay between utopian and poetic discourse. In this article,
I will argue that the insights which inform such a project of geographical spatial appropriation simultaneously participate in the exploration of new poetic potentialities in more “literary” texts by SaintSimonian authors such as Chevalier and the playwright Charles Duveyrier.
While Saint-Simonian propaganda had invested heavily in
specialist technical literature throughout the 1820s, promoting in particular in the newspapers Le Globe and Le Producteur the civil and
industrial benefits of such subjects as mechanical and civil engineering, under Enfantin the group soon became desirous of a less didactically structured and more generally sensually persuasive presentation
of its programme for development. Enfantin’s name is synonymous
with the group’s cultish retreat to a house belonging to him at Ménilmontant in Paris in 1832. There, Enfantin preached the “rehabilitation
of matter”, that is, a sensual reinvigoration of all those aspects of culture and society that had, in his estimation, fallen under the influence
of Christian asceticism. One of the principal objectives of the retreat
was the writing of the Livre nouveau des Saint-Simoniens, a manuscript intended as a prophetic synthesis of human knowledge. The
work broaches a vast number of themes, reflected in its successive
discussions of the liberation of woman, the potential social applications of electricity, mathematics, stereotomy and physiology, and the
histories of language and literature. In the manuscript’s record of a
conversation between Enfantin and Chevalier, the former explains his
desire to develop a more sensually appealing scientific model, or “science attrayante”. In order to appreciate properly the benefits of this
science, Enfantin says: “Il faut […] que nous entrions dans le sens des
imaginaires”.
4 The modus operandi of the “science attrayante” can be
observed in the behaviour of select individuals:
Or, il y a des hommes qui ont la propriété de mettre ainsi leur vie en dehors, dont
l’existence se passe à combiner des modifications pareilles d’un objet, d’un être, sur
___________________________
4 Émile Barrault and others, Le Livre nouveau des Saint-Simoniens, ed. by Philippe
Régnier (Tusson: Éditions du Lérot, 1991), p. 184.