Reading Order
RenéRené Reading Order
René (1802; 1805 as a separate publication) by François-René de Chateaubriand is the foundational text of French Romantic melancholy — a short prose poem in fiction that created the archetype of the alienated Romantic hero who has experienced the loss of religious faith and social connection and retreats into a vague, incommunicable despair that he calls 'le vague des passions' (the vagueness of the passions). René, a young French nobleman, tells his story to his friend Chactas and the missionary Father Souël among the Natchez people of Louisiana: he recounts his wanderings through Europe, his inability to find satisfaction in any activity or attachment, and the revelation that his beloved sister Amélie has entered a convent to escape her incestuous love for him. The incest theme is the novel's most disturbing element, but it functions primarily as a symbol of René's fundamental disconnection from ordinary human relationships — his passions are of a kind that cannot be fulfilled in the world as it exists. René was originally published as part of The Genius of Christianity (Le Génie du christianisme, 1802) — Chateaubriand's attempt to revive Catholic Christianity after the Revolution by arguing for its aesthetic beauty — and functioned as an illustration of the need for religious faith; the 1805 separate publication gave it a life of its own. René created the 'mal du siècle' — the century's disease of Romantic melancholy — and directly influenced Lamartine, Hugo, Musset, and the entire French Romantic generation.
Where to start
René (1802) — the most accessible edition pairs it with Atala (1801), Chateaubriand's companion tale of a converted Native American woman in Louisiana; the Penguin Classics edition of Atala / René / The Last of the Abencerages (trans. Irving Putter) is the standard. Short (about 60 pages for René alone) and can be read in one sitting. Read with a knowledge of what the French Revolution destroyed — the social world whose loss René is mourning.
Complete René Book List
- 1Buy
Atala / René / The Last of the Abencerages (Penguin Classics)
François-René de Chateaubriand (trans. Irving Putter)·1961·The standard English translation — pairs René with Atala (the companion tale of Native American Christianity set in Louisiana) and Les Aventures du dernier Abencérage; the best way to read René in its original context as part of Chateaubriand's larger project. - 2Buy
Adolphe
Benjamin Constant·1816·The companion text of French Romantic emotional paralysis — where René is vague and cosmic in his melancholy, Adolphe is precise and analytical about the specific emotions of a failed relationship; reading both together shows the two modes of early French Romantic psychological fiction. - 3Buy
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe·1774·The German predecessor that René is in direct dialogue with — Goethe's Werther (1774) created the first great Romantic male of sentiment who cannot find his place in the world; René is Werther translated into the French Romantic and Catholic context. - 4Buy
Confessions
Jean-Jacques Rousseau·1782·The French predecessor that underlies René's mode — Rousseau's Confessions and especially his account of 'rêveries' (idle, unfocused reverie) in La Nouvelle Héloïse is the origin of the 'vague des passions' that René diagnoses; Chateaubriand explicitly acknowledged Rousseau as the source of the mal du siècle he was describing. - 5Buy
Corinne, or Italy
Germaine de Staël·1807·The companion French Romantic novel that explores the same themes of alienation, genius, and the impossibility of happiness in a world that does not recognize exceptional souls; de Staël's Corinne is the female complement to Chateaubriand's René and the two works define the early French Romantic imagination.
René — Frequently Asked Questions
What is René by Chateaubriand about?
René (1802) by François-René de Chateaubriand is a short prose poem in fiction about a young French nobleman who tells his story to the Natchez elder Chactas and the missionary Father Souël in Louisiana. René recounts his wanderings through Europe, his inability to find satisfaction in any activity or relationship, and the revelation that his beloved sister Amélie has entered a convent to escape her incestuous love for him. The novel created the archetype of the alienated Romantic hero suffering from 'le vague des passions' — the vagueness of the passions, an incommunicable melancholy caused by having desires that cannot be fulfilled in the real world.
What is le vague des passions in French Romanticism?
Le vague des passions (the vagueness of the passions) is the term Chateaubriand coined in René (1802) to describe the characteristic emotional state of the Romantic hero: a diffuse, incommunicable melancholy caused by having passions and aspirations that exceed anything the world can satisfy. The Romantic hero has desires too large for ordinary life but no specific object that could fulfill them — he is bored by the real, haunted by the ideal, and incapable of the ordinary satisfactions of domestic or social life. The concept became the defining diagnosis of the French Romantic generation — the 'mal du siècle' (century's disease) — and influenced everyone from Lamartine and Hugo to Baudelaire and Flaubert.
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