Balzac's Comédie Humaine

1) Balzac had set himself the task of encompassing in his works every aspect of life in France of his day. The confidence which allowed Balzac to foster this ambition stemmed from the exhilaration which writers of the Romantic period felt when contemplating their role in society.

In 1834, Balzac wrote to Mme Hanska
Nous avons atteint à l’ère de l’intelligence.  Les rois matériels, la force brutale s’en vont.

Balzac speaks of a world of the intellect where are to be found great explorers of the stature of Columbus.
Il y aura des souverains dans le royaume universel de la pensée – And Balzac, who admired Napoleon had the ambition to be a “Napoleon of the pen”.

2) Balzac's statement of his literary aims. 

Balzac had originally intended to follow Sir Walter Scott who wrote history from the earliest times.  However, later, he decided instead to devote himself to the history of his own time.

By 1834 he had decided to write a complete social history of France of his time.  His term for this history was “des études de mœurs.” In a letter to Mme Hanska in this year, he describes the huge scale of his ambition: 
Les études de mœurs  représenteront tous les effets sociaux sans que ni une situation de la vie, ni une physionomie, ni un caractère d’homme ou de femme, ni une manière de vivre, ni une profession, ni une zone sociale, ni un pays français, ni quoi que ce soit de l’enfance, de la vieillesse, de l’âge mûr, de la politique, de la justice, de la guerre, ait été oublié.

At times he may give the impression that his job is to provide a physical guidebook rather than a book of fiction.  For example, in the preface to “Une Fille d'Eve” (1839), he says the author
…… veut peindre le pays, tout en peignant les hommes, raconter les plus beaux sites et les principales villes de la France aux étrangers, constater l’état des constructions anciennes et modernes au dix-neuvième siècle, expliquer les trois systèmes différents qui ont, en cinquante ans, donné une physionomie spéciale aux meubles aux habitations. 
Grâce au soin qu’il a eu, peut-être saura-t-on, en 1850, comment était le Paris de l’Empereur.   

From this explanation, potential readers could be excused for forming the impression that what he intended was some comprehensive history textbook of the period of Napoleon 1. 

In 1842, Balzac chose a title to embrace the whole collection of his works. It was 
in his Preface to the Comédie Humaine that Balzac specifically rejected the notion that his works would be dry histories - “Les sèches et rebutantes nomenaclatures de faits appelés histoires.”  He tells us that the history that he will write will record the drama of human society:  “le drame à trois ou quatre mille personnages que présente une société”.

Balzac says that 19th century France is going to provide him with the characters and the action.  He is merely to be the secretary.
La société française allait être l’historien, je ne devais être que le secrétaire  En dressant l’inventaire des vices et des vertus, en peignant les caractères, en composant des types, par la réunion des traits de plusieurs caractères homogènes, peut-être pourrais-je arriver à écrire l’histoire oubliée par tant d’historiens, celle des mœurs ……… je réaliserais, sur la France du dix-neuvième siècle ce livre que nous regrettons tous, que Rome, Athènes ne nous ont malheureusement pas laissé sur leurs civilisations. 

To the role of social historian, Balzac also added that of scientific commentator.  Romantic writers were very excited by the rapid advances of science taking place in their century.  Balzac was particularly interested in the evolutionary theories of two contemporary French naturalists, Lamarck (1744 – 1829) and, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772- 1844).  The latter proposed the theory of the transmutation of species in time and Balzac was convinced by his thesis that human beings were originally uniform and that their present differences could be explained by the different backgrounds in which they have developed.  As a result, Balzac saw for himself a scientific role, identifying the formative influences on the human species in society.  He tells us in the Preface to La Comédie Humaine of 1842:
Il a donc existé ; il existera donc de tout temps des espèces sociales comme il y a des espèces zoologiques.  Si Buffon a fait un magnifique ouvrage en essayant de représenter dans un livre l’ensemble de la zoologie, n’y avait-il pas une œuvre de ce genre à faire pour la société.

3) The way in which Balzac organised his history

As Balzac was involved in a scientific exercise of great complexity he saw it necessary to categorise his work in an orderly fashion.

In 1830 he had begun grouping his works under the title of "Scènes de la vie privée".

In 1834 (see the above letter to Mme Hanska), when he had developed the grandiose scheme of writing the account of every aspect of society, he proposed to divide his work under three headings:
1) Etudes de mœurs - 24 volumes
2) Etudes philosophiques – 15 volumes
3) Etudes analytiques – 9 volumes

Deliberate links between his books
In 1834 Balzac introduced another innovation to show that his books represented one unified living world. It was in “le Père Goriot” that, for the first time, he reintroduced characters who had appeared in earlier books.  After this he systematically linked his works together to show the interaction of the characters of different books.  In his preface to "Une fille d'Ève" (1839), he explains why he uses this device.  He tells us that this happens in real life, where events bring you together again with people from the past and when this happens, an explanation of the intervening years is called for:
…….. il en est ainsi dans le monde social.  Vous rencontrez au milieu d’un salon un homme que vous avez perdu de vue depuis dix ans ; il est premier ministre et capitaliste ; vous l’avez connu sans redingote…….. puis vous allez dans un coin de salon et là quelque délicieux conteur de société vous fait en une demi-heure, l’histoire pittoresque des dix ou vingt ans que vous ignoriez….. Il n’y a rien qui soit d’un seul bloc dans ce monde ; tout y est mosaïque.

The recategorization of the books of La Comédie Humaine  in 1841
It was in 1840, in a letter to an editor, that Balzac had used the term "Comédie Humaine” for the first time, possibly thinking of Dante's Divine Comedy.  In 1842, he decided to use this term for the whole collection of his works.

By 1841, Balzac he had felt the need to reorganise his works again.  His new system introduced new subdivisions.  His "Etudes de Mœurs" were subdivided into six “scènes”.  He associated four of the scenes with the portrait of a different age of human life:

  1. Scenes of private life: a study of youth -- a period of emotion and error.
  2. Scenes of provincial life -- from the age of 20 years to 30 years.  -- A time of family friction -- idealism dies -- money asserts itself.
  3. Scenes of Parisian life -- 30 years to old age.  -- Paris is the centre of social and artistic life but is a hotbed of greed, vice, hypocrisy and destructive ambition.
  4. Scenes of political life.  The characters symbolise political movements.
  5. Scenes of a military life.  -- To show the nation of war.
  6. Scenes of country life.  Old age -- people retired from war and politics.  -- A time for religion and true human kindness.

Balzac's divisions of his work were however rather artificial, for example in le Père Goriot the story of Goriot and of Vautrin would fit it in the age range for Parisian life Category 3.  However if the story of Rastignac takes precedence, this would make it a study of youth and hence a study of private life, placing it in Category 1. In fact Balzac classifies Le Père Goriot in category 2 – when idealism dies and money asserts itself

Balzac continued to change his schemes.  In later years he added another theme:-
7) Poor relations.  -- rivalries between individuals and classes in a provincial town

Balzac's never allowed his groupings to become dogmatic boundaries to inhibit his writing.  Often they were made in retrospect, to order books he had already written.

One great success artistically was the reappearance of characters to link together different books.  This allows us to follow the development of a character over the vast canvas of his works.

4 Balzac's vantage point as a social historian.  Balzac had a unique opportunity to observe the contemporary scene.

  1. He had many friends in many different walks of life.
  2. He had lived in the provinces and also in Paris.  A constant theme in his books is that of the young provincial fighting to make his way in competitive Paris.  He saw, in modern Paris, civilisation in a decadent state.

5 Balzac's final achievement
Finally Balzac’s Comédie Humaine totaled nearly 100 novels and plays
The vast numbers of characters he created
In his preface of 1842, Balzac had said that in order to show contemporary life in all its complexity, the Comédie Humaine would include 2000-3000 outstanding characters.   
In fact he surpassed this goal. The Completed Comédie Humaine totalled 2472 named characters and 566 unnamed characters.

The vast subject area of his books

  1. He delineated the social forces shaping the French society of his day (see later notes on Balzac's view of life and history)
  2. He describes the different social classes -
    1. The aristocracy. -  Proust blames him for his naïve snobbery towards this class, saying he gives the impression of being flattered to be mixing with them in his novels.  However in his portrayal of the aristocracy he is successful in conveying a wide range of human character, with his portraits of the women aristocrats often particularly vivid, whose appeal is certainly enhanced in Balzac’s eyes by their wealth and rank. 
    2. The upper and middle classes – These provide the greatest number of characters.  These characters depict many professions: judges - barristers - doctors -- men of the theatre -- businessmen.
    3. The urban working classes - These characters are not many in number but there are some memorable portraits
    4. The peasant class - a vital picture is given of these classes
    5. The Industrial Class - A limited picture. Balzac is criticised sometimes for not showing the new class of artisans but the industrial revolution occurred later in France than in England.

Conclusion
In 1844 Balzac has said to Madame Hanska that his achievement lay in having a whole society in his head.  Most readers of his books would acknowledge this incredible.achievement.

Return to “Le père Goriot” contents page.