Ernest Renan
The order of presentation, through Chapter 4, is roughly chronological. The amount of space given to the analysis of his youthful works (Chapters 1-4) is justified by the fact that he is one of those authors whose major ideas and themes, a long-time ripening, are constantly being hinted at or foreshadowed in his early writings, before finding their happiest expression in his maturity. In Chapters 5-8 the treatment is more thematic than chronological. In Chapter 5, chronology is discarded in order to survey the whole of Renan's major historical work. This is the central chapter, just as history was Renan's central and most revealing accomplishment. The writing of history for him, while retaining its claim to be partly a science, which examines an object of knowledge distinct from the self, is also a means of expressing his own personal dialectic, through what becomes a kind of symbol of his inner world. Of his essay collections little is said in this book, taking the liberty of referring the reader to Ernest Renan as an Essayist. Chapter 6 does contain, however, a discussion of his political (in the broadest sense) essays and speeches, though from a different point of view than that taken in my earlier book. Chapters 7 and 8 analyze his other major productions-philosophical dialogues and dramas, and autobiography-in such a way as to reveal how they grow out of youthful roots
Print Book, English, 1968
Twayne Publishers, New York, 1968