Prétendus suppliciés de la publicité : les exemples de Chateaubriand et de Lamartine

Abstract

Through the projection of the author’s persona, and the aesthetic concept of their writings, both Chateaubriand and Lamartine show themselves to be aligned more closely with the Romantic mythology of literary vocation than with the contemporary reality of publicity, as condition of fame. Confronted with the new demands of an emerging media culture they ostensibly reject, they adopt an affected resistance, paradoxical stance that coexists with a strategy of self-promotion. Lamartine, while lamenting the torment of publicity, organises a full-scale poetic and media campaign. Chateaubriand, for his part, while denying an ardent thirst for fame, appears to be “consumed by the demon of publicity”, according to his contemporaries. Despite their differences in generation, style, and temperament, both authors reveal a similar discordance between discourse and practice, symptomatic of the imperative of celebrity, which compels each, in his own way, to navigate the laws of media exposure. Their trajectories thus highlight the contradictions of a Romantic posture, torn between the ideal of disinterested vocation and the demands of public consecration, as well as of commercial profit.