Chénier

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani almost always cites André Chénier through a single line, "Sur des pensers nouveaux faisons des vers antiques" ("On new thoughts let us write ancient verses"), which recurs in sessions from 2016 to 2023. He first presents it as an example of a project doomed to fail1. Later, he presents Chénier instead as an exception in eighteenth-century poetry, and even as the only true poet of that century2. He returns to this idea of an exception in 2018, in a session on Nerval3, and again in 2023, on the passage from the "debauchery of meaning" to the "orgy of sentiment"4. He also reads the line as an imperative which, in his view, Baudelaire endorses, and so makes it a link between Chénier and nineteenth-century poetry5. His judgement therefore changes from one session to another. In 2016, the formula stands for an impossible undertaking. Afterwards, it defines what sets Chénier apart in his century and what Baudelaire takes up from him.

1. 1Hegel Plage 1/51 Feb 2016 · 2:15:16
2. 2Leibniz1 Aug 2017 · 1:01:21
3. 3#4.6 Angélique (de Nerval)15 Mar 2018 · 59:00
4. 4Dominique Pagani : De la débauche du sens à l'orgie du sentiment29 May 2023 · 18:15
5. 5L'interview de Dominique Pagani : Introduction aux futurs ateliers23 Mar 2020 · 57:34

Summary produced automatically from 5 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.