Literature as Historical Archive

Abstract

While it is always desirable to develop new archives, it is especially important for late eighteenth century France. A number of cultural historians have suggested that our sense of historical reality would be augmented if it were infused by the information provided by art and literature. The last half of the eighteenth century gives reason to believe that literature offers a particularly useful opening onto the reality of people's lives. Because the methods of literary patronage had changed, for the first time the financing of publication required a mass market. Fortunately, literacy was increasing significantly, thus producing sufficient numbers of paying customers to support a burgeoning publishing industry. People read for entertainment and, it seems, for information. Writers increasingly claimed their works were realistic. Numerous scholars have used these works for illustration of conclusions reached about the period; a few have turned to them as the source of indications of that reality. While literature in one way or another reflects the period of its creation, better methodology needs to be developed for using literature as an opening onto the age. Single works do not in isolation provide trustworthy insights into the thought, feelings, customs, and details of everyday life. Still, reliability increases as the novels and plays included in the archive become more numerous and common elements emerge. Multiplicity of example and congruence of significance are essential for using literature and the arts as reliable historical archives. If a large percentage of the actual works of art not only turn around but focus, for example, on the reasons for emigration, or the anguish of divorce, or incest, or suicide, it seems obvious that literature is responding to contemporary conditions and attitudes. Of course, any conclusions are particularly useful when they are buttressed by other, traditional resources.