Mathieu Laine: "Polanski and the Césars: Proust's lesson"

Mathieu Laine is the author of “We must save the free world” (Plon, 2019).

Witnessing once again that literature can help us better understand our times, the best way to settle the case of the Caesar of Polanski is at the heart of the Contre Sainte-Beuve . In this river of stylistic diamonds, we find not only the dazzling waters from which Research will be born , but also, in its middle, the illuminating descent into flames of the critical method of Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve.

Drawing inspiration from the natural sciences, this literary critic of the 19th century attached capital importance to the life and privacy of the authors in order to bring to the skies or murder the works submitted to his judgment. "It is the individual and the individual that concern him," said Paul Bourget of him. It is also what wins when we judge a work and its rewards in terms of the behavior, be it execrable or condemnable, of its author.

Read also: Alain Finkielkraut: "The terrible evening of the Cesars"

So Sainte-Beuve had

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