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Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 1. The Emigrant Literature — Context and Discussion

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Authors: Brandes, Georg, 1842-1927, Morison, Mary [Translator], White, Diana (Translator), 1868-1950 [Translator] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2014 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Naturalism in literature; Romanticism Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 76,398

Reading time 333 min

Text sections 7

This digital edition of Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 1. The Emigrant Literature — Context and Discussion is described by source-level measurements including 76,398 words, 5 hr 33 min estimated reading time, and 7 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 26.3 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #47675

Georg Brandes's opening volume of a six-part European literary history examines the 'Emigrant Literature' of the early 1800s, focusing on works by authors such as Germaine de Staël. The book argues that these writings reflect a reaction against Enlightenment ideas and a subsequent return of progress, using comparative analysis of French, German, and English texts.

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Georg Brandes opens this first volume of his six-part survey with a bold methodological claim: he intends to write a 'psychology of the first half of the nineteenth century' by tracing literary movements across France, Germany, and England. The book's catalog subjects—Romanticism, Naturalism, and 19th-century criticism—only partially capture its actual content. Brandes devotes sustained attention to Germaine de Staël's novel Delphine, analyzing its depiction of a woman's revolt against society's conventions. He treats the work not as a standalone fiction but as a case study in the 'Emigrant Literature' phenomenon, where individual rebellion meets despair at the futility of struggle against reactionary forces.

Comparative Method and the Fox-and-Stork Fable

Brandes explicitly frames his project as a corrective to national literary insularity. He argues that nations have long 'played fox and stork' with each other, serving delicacies on dishes that the other cannot access. His solution is a 'scientific view of literature' that provides a telescope with one magnifying and one diminishing end, adjusted to 'remedy the illusions of unassisted eyesight.' This metaphor, drawn from the excerpts, reveals Brandes's conviction that comparative study alone can reveal the true shape of literary history. He does not merely juxtapose works; he seeks to identify a single 'great leading movement'—the ebb and flow of Enlightenment ideas and their reaction—that conditions all other currents.

The Case of Delphine: Revolt and Despair

Brandes uses Delphine to illustrate the core dynamic of the Emigrant Literature: 'the same bold revolt followed by the same despair in view of the uselessness of the struggle.' He quotes a contemporary critic who denounced the novel as disseminating 'dangerous and immoral doctrines,' calling its heroine a 'Bacchante' and 'grenadier.' Brandes dismisses such attacks as 'the wet powder of orthodox belief and the paper balls of narrow-mindedness.' Yet he also notes that modern critics find the novel's style 'loose and diffuse,' while its ideas remain unassimilated in parts of Europe. The 'war with society' Brandes identifies is not against the state but against the 'jumble of conventions and beliefs' that constitute public opinion—a mass of congealed earlier philosophies.

Reaction and the Return of Progress

Brandes's central thesis is that the early nineteenth century witnessed a 'gradual fading away' of eighteenth-century ideas, followed by the 'return of the idea of progress in new, ever higher-mounting waves.' He sets 1848 as the historical break that limits his study. The excerpts show him applying this framework to Delphine: the novel's despair arises from the 'sorrowful feeling that no remonstrance will avail' and that the 'retrograde movement must run its course.' Brandes does not claim that the reaction was total; rather, he sees the period as one of struggle between residual Enlightenment gains and resurgent conservatism. His analysis remains grounded in specific texts, not abstract theory.

Readers approaching this volume should expect a work of literary history that is argument-driven rather than encyclopedic. Brandes selects a few key authors—de Staël is the most prominent in the excerpts—to illustrate his thesis about reaction and progress. The comparative method he champions means that French, German, and English works are discussed in relation to one another, not in isolation. Those seeking a comprehensive survey of early 19th-century literature will find a selective, polemical account instead.

Brandes followed exiled voices like Madame de Staël through the shadows of reaction, sensing how progress retreats, then returns. That quiet rhythm came back to me while shelving Mr. Gladstone and Genesis Essay #5 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" — Edition Insights, where an old statesman wrestles Scripture against geology. Both books, in their own century, watched old certainties meet new light, and neither blinked first.