Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1999 Ernest Renan and the Question of Race. Jane Victoria Dagon Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Dagon, Jane Victoria, "Ernest Renan and the Question of Race." (1999). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 6937. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/6937 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. 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ERNEST RENAN AND THE QUESTION OF RACE A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of French and Italian by Jane Victoria Dagon 5 .A., University of South Florida, 1990 M.A., Universite Laval, 1996 May 1999 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 9936088 UMI Microform 9936088 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my dissertation director Dr. Greg Stone for all his help and his great references, especially that thin green book. I would also like to thank the other members of my committee, Dr. Nathaniel Wing, Dr. Lucie Brind'Amour, Dr. J. Jefferson Humphries and Dr. Richard Warga for all their input. I would not have been able to complete this dissertation without the librarians in the Reference Department, Special Collections and Interlibrary Loan/Borrowing at the following universities: Louisiana State University, University of South Florida (Tampa), University of Wisconsin Madison, Universite Laval (Quebec) and University of Cincinnati. Finally, I would also like to thank the following people for all their support: Ellen, Stephen, Andrea & Shawn, Elvira, Esther, Frangoise, Frank, HJG, Jeffrey, John B., Joy, Kevin, Lev, Ollivier, Pamela, Nathalie, Nayat, Nini, Scooter, Tim, Christina, Dela, Rick & Val, and numerous cousins. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.......................................... ii ABSTRACT................................................. iv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION................................... 1 2 RENAN, THE SEMITIC LANGUAGES AND EDWARD SAID... 33 3 "QU'EST-CE QU'UNE NATION?"..................... 70 4 VIE DE JESUS.................................. 103 5 CALIBAN........................................ 121 6 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS........................ 149 REFERENCES............................................... 153 VITA..................................................... 174 iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT Racism in France can be traced back to the 1560's when the nobles claimed to be of a separate race in order to obtain special rights and privileges. Soon after in the seventeenth century, scientists started to classify humans according to physical features. With the increase in travel, the slave trade, the fear of the unknown and the fear of contamination, these factors along with physiognomy and phrenology encouraged "biological racism." During the second half of the nineteenth century, Ernest Renan (1823-1892) denounces biological racism and the existence of the so-called "pure races." He is also the first dramatist to write a sequel to William Shakespeare's The Tempest (1611). However, the works of this French philosopher, philologist, historian, scholar of Semitic languages, and theologian have fallen into relative obscurity. The goal of this dissertation is to provide a balanced view of Renan's works and to provide grounds for revising the image of Renan constructed by such critics as Edward Said and Tzvetan Todorov. This dissertation also attempts to show that some of Renan's writings contain elements that deconstruct the discourse of the obvious ethnocentric ism in some of his other writings. The following texts by Renan's are analyzed: Histoire gendrale et systeme comparS des langues semitiques, 1 'Avenir de la science, Vie de Jdsus, "Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?" and Caliban. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION During his lifetime, Ernest Renan (1823-1892) was an author highly renowned throughout Europe who started to write seriously soon after he left the seminary of Saint-Sulpice in 1845. Renan is primarily known for Hlstoire g£n&rale et systeme compare des langues semitiques (1855), the highly criticized 1 'Avenir de la science (originally written in 1848-1849 but not published until 1890), and the highly controversial Vie de J6sus (1863). In Hlstoire ggn£rale et systeme compare des langues sdmltlques, Renan is the first to classify and to retrace the history of the Semitic people and the origins of their language as well as to undertake a comparative study of the Semitic and Indo-European languages. When Renan wrote 1 'Avenir de la science (between 1848 and 1849), he strongly believed in the importance and the advancements made in science during this time. He writes primarily about the role of science as well as the role of philosophy, history and what he refers to as the history of the human spirit. In the preface written in 1890, some forty years after it was originally written, Renan acknowledges the lacunae in this work. He reluctantly agreed to have this text published with minimal revisions made to his original manuscript. In 1863, Renan became a best-selling author. In six months, sixty thousand copies of Vie de J4sus were sold 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (Robertson 1924, 39). Also by this time, this text had already been translated into German, Dutch, Italian, and an English version in progress (Blanshard 1984, 107). This book is very controversial due to the fact that Renan depicts Jesus Christ as merely human. Renan also questions the validity of the supernatural events surrounding the life of Christ, since the Gospels were not written until more than sixty years after the death of Christ. Today the contributions of this French philosopher, philologist, scholar of Semitic languages and theologian have fallen into relative obscurity. If the works of Ernest Renan are known at all today, it is possibly due to the harsh criticism by Edward Said, Tzvetan Todorov and Laura B. O'Connor (the latter two have both, incidentally, worked either indirectly or directly with Said: Said was the general editor for the English version of Todorov's book: On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism, and Exoticism in French Thought (1993)1 and he was O'Connor's dissertation director at Columbia University [Return of the Repressed Celt] in 1997). Said, Todorov and O'Connor all accuse Renan of being a racist in their respective works. In several of Said's works: Beginnings: Intention and Method (1975); "Renan's Philological Laboratory"2 (1977); Orientalism (1978); and The World, The Text, and The Critic3 (1983), Renan's name is often synonymous with the European oppressor during the colonial era. Said also criticizes 2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.