Afinidades, diferenças políticas e consagração: uma análise de críticas literárias sobre romances franceses em 1836

Abstract

This article aims to understand how French literary criticism operates in the evaluation of novels in early 19th century. We will focus our attention on two periodicals – La Presse and Le Constitutionnel – and, more specifically, on a set of analysis, which have as their object the same novels, and which were published in both newspapers. Obviously, the study of critics about a reduced set of novels in just two newspapers is not enough to determine a profile of criticisms in periodicals. However, the peculiar characteristics of the material (political differences between the newspapers, different degrees of consecration of the authors and the different prestige of the commentators) may bring a more accurate understanding of the way French criticism works in the first half of the 19th century, a topic insufficiently explored yet. Our purpose is to answer some questions: does the political profile of newspapers affect the judgment of novels? Does the authors' consecration degree interfere in the judgments? Do the relationships between the critics have an impact on evaluations?