Abstract
Successful literature offers either directly or indirectly rich descriptions of actions and emotions of human beings. I will first examine in this chapter what can be called the general theory of emotions in Hazlitt and Stendhal. Their approach to affectivity stood in opposition to the most common Romantic sentimentalism at the beginning of the nineteenth century: They believed, in fact, that the heart and the reason were not enemies but on the contrary deeply interconnected. Both writers were convinced that most human activities are motivated by emotions but were utterly suspicious of condescending sentimental attitudes, and condemned Rousseau’s complacency in his own feelings. I will then focus on a specific faculty of the mind as understood by Hazlitt in his essays, and by Stendhal in his various writings and his novels: The imagination has the capability of combining the real and the possible, and therefore analyzing by conjecture and thought experiments both the past and the future:
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Notes
- 1.
For an accurate debate on several contemporary approaches to thought experiment, see Engel (2011).
- 2.
Peter Goldie is very concerned with the emotional dynamics and the fact that our emotional life takes the form of a long narrative (Goldie 2000).
- 3.
On this theme, Kevin Mulligan refers to the work of Nicolai Hartmann who distinguished between Lebenswahrheit and Wesenswahrheit, between truths about life which are true to life and essential truths (Aesthetik. Berlin: de Gruyter 1953).
- 4.
See for example: “This rejection [of human love] of ordinary human passion is nowhere more vividly expressed than in the Confessions, where Augustine movingly recalls his own delight in earthly love…” (Nussbaum 1999, p. 61. Emphasis added). See also: “So the question is not really how probable something is but how vividly it is imaginable” (De Sousa 2005, p. 351. De Sousa underlines). On the theme of the link between reason and emotions see Reboul (2001).
- 5.
Isabelle Pitteloud (University of Geneva) discusses at length about emotions, values, and imagination in the novel in her dissertation on Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert and their theory of emotions, developing via the close reading of literary examples the argument of Kevin Mulligan’s article, “From appropriate emotions to values” (Mulligan 1998).
- 6.
“Il y a des passions, l’amour, la vengeance, la haine, l’orgueil, la vanité, l’amour de la gloire. Il y a des états des passions: la terreur, la crainte, la fureur, le rire, les pleurs, la joie, la tristesse, l’inquiétude.
Je les appelle états de passions, parce que plusieurs passions différentes peuvent nous rendre terrifiés, craignants, furieux, riants, pleurants, etc.
Il y a ensuite les moyens de passion, comme l’hypocrisie. Il y a ensuite les habitudes de l’âme; il y en a de sensibles, il y en a d’utiles. Nous nommons les utiles, vertus; les nuisibles vices. Vertus: justice, clémence, probité, etc. Vices: cruauté, etc. Vertus moins utiles ou qualités: modestie, bienfaisance, bienveillance, sagesse, etc. Vices moins nuisibles ou défauts: fatuité, esprit de contradiction, le menteur, l’impertinence, le mystérieux, la timidité, la distraction, etc ” (Mulligan 1998, p. 118 (to Pauline, June 1804)).
- 7.
“Si Mme de Staël n’avait pas voulu être plus passionnée que la nature et la première éducation ne l’ont faite, elle aurait fait des chefs-d’œuvre. Elle a voulu sortir de son ton naturel, elle a fait des ouvrages pleins d’excellentes pensées, fruits d’un caractère réfléchissant, et il y manque tout ce qui tient au caractère tendre. Comme cependant elle a voulu faire de la tendresse, elle est tombée dans le galimatias” (Stendhal 1968, p. 214 (to Pauline Beyle, August 20, 1805)).
- 8.
“On gâte des sentiments si tendres à les raconter en détail” (Stendhal 1982c, p. 959).
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Lombardo, P. (2014). Literature, Emotions, and the Possible: Hazlitt and Stendhal. In: Reboul, A. (eds) Mind, Values, and Metaphysics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05146-8_8
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