Senancour

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani regards Senancour as one of his favourite writers and as the one who analysed the mal du siècle with the greatest lucidity, "surgically" or "almost clinically", in the epistolary novel Obermann, which he recommends12. He presents him as an aristocratic pre-Romantic and a disciple of Rousseau. He often quotes his sentence: spring is more beautiful in nature, but man has done so much that autumn is gentler. He sees in it history entering aesthetics and affectivity, the gentle taking precedence over the beautiful34. He also dwells on the voluptuousness of melancholy: a happy, healthy man who is bored and dreads the season of happiness. Depending on the session, he stresses an almost-wish to die or, on the contrary, the absence of any deathly side. He comments on "nothing oppresses me, nothing satisfies me", "love is immense, it is not infinite" and the need for boundless illusions, which he reads as the infinitude of human desire56. He also points to Letter 18, which distinguishes enjoying from being happy, and to the envy felt for the woodcutter who sings as he works.

1. 1#1.6 Entre crise et guerre : Philosopher ?10 Dec 2015 · 8:35
2. 2#5 Bien-et Mé-faits de l'amnésie...19 Nov 2020 · 9:36
3. 3Q comme Qualité31 Dec 2014 · 6:31
4. 4La maladie, le malheur, le mal20 Sept 2024 · 1:20:59
5. 5#3 • Les Attelé(e)s de la confinitude4 Apr 2020 · 44:30
6. 6La mondanité chez Clouscard : Désirer quoi ? Par qui ??3 Sept 2023 · 36:27

Summary produced automatically from 32 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.