WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.560 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are attempting 00:00:02.560 --> 00:00:06.040 to contain a man who really consciously refused 00:00:06.040 --> 00:00:08.320 to be contained. Oh, absolutely. A figure who 00:00:08.320 --> 00:00:11.439 somehow manages to bridge the gap between, you 00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:14.740 know, this passionate romanticism and the icy 00:00:14.740 --> 00:00:17.739 precision of literary realism. We are diving 00:00:17.739 --> 00:00:20.059 into the multiple identities, the brilliant works, 00:00:20.260 --> 00:00:23.359 and the frankly bizarre psychological legacy 00:00:23.359 --> 00:00:26.600 of Marie -Henri Bile, who everyone knows as Stenthal. 00:00:26.879 --> 00:00:28.940 And our mission today is to take this entire 00:00:28.940 --> 00:00:32.000 stack of sources, his life, his theoretical writings, 00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:34.780 his really controversial reception, and turn 00:00:34.780 --> 00:00:36.700 them into cohesive knowledge for you. Because 00:00:36.700 --> 00:00:38.960 Stendhal isn't just a writer. He's more like 00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:41.219 an intellectual riddle. He is. He's the author 00:00:41.219 --> 00:00:44.060 critics credit with inventing modern, serious 00:00:44.060 --> 00:00:47.159 realism. Yet, if you ask most people, he's best 00:00:47.159 --> 00:00:49.420 known for a strange physical malady named after 00:00:49.420 --> 00:00:52.619 him. And that abstract, almost systematic analysis 00:00:52.619 --> 00:00:54.960 of how we fall in love, it's a very strange combination. 00:00:55.560 --> 00:00:57.560 It is. To be the starting point of one of the 00:00:57.560 --> 00:01:00.119 most intellectually rigorous movements in literature, 00:01:00.219 --> 00:01:02.600 while also being the namesake for, you know, 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:05.700 a psychological reaction to art. Exactly. Stendhal 00:01:05.700 --> 00:01:09.299 spent his entire life trying to live this flamboyant 00:01:09.299 --> 00:01:12.379 romantic existence, hiding behind a whole series 00:01:12.379 --> 00:01:17.099 of honestly hilarious aliases. And yet his greatest 00:01:17.099 --> 00:01:19.859 contribution to the world was his absolutely 00:01:19.859 --> 00:01:22.859 merciless, almost clinical psychological clarity. 00:01:23.319 --> 00:01:25.599 We're dealing with duality at every single level 00:01:25.599 --> 00:01:28.000 here. We are. And we want to understand why a 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:30.700 writer who dedicated his work to the happy few 00:01:30.700 --> 00:01:32.640 and, let's be honest, struggled for recognition 00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:36.159 in his own time, is now considered just indispensable. 00:01:36.599 --> 00:01:38.359 So we'll start by unpacking the man himself. 00:01:38.920 --> 00:01:41.420 Marie -Henri Bale, born in Grenoble in 1783, 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:45.400 died in Paris 1842. We'll trace his path from 00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:48.000 Napoleon's army to the salons of Paris, analyze 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:51.439 his most enduring nonfiction ideas, crystallization 00:01:51.439 --> 00:01:54.099 and Stendhal syndrome. And finally, we'll grapple 00:01:54.099 --> 00:01:56.780 with his literary style, examining why his novels, 00:01:56.859 --> 00:01:58.680 especially The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse 00:01:58.680 --> 00:02:01.000 of Parma, are seen as these foundational texts 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:03.799 of modernity. So let's begin. The origins of 00:02:03.799 --> 00:02:06.099 the man who saw life as a masked ball. Okay, 00:02:06.159 --> 00:02:08.419 let's unpack this complicated, intensely self 00:02:08.419 --> 00:02:10.580 -analyzing man. And we have to start with the 00:02:10.580 --> 00:02:12.900 deep wound of his childhood. We do. The sources 00:02:12.900 --> 00:02:16.120 all describe Marie -Henri Bale's early life as 00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:19.360 definingly unhappy. Which seems so contrary to 00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:21.719 the passionate theatrical characters he would 00:02:21.719 --> 00:02:23.780 later create. Right. And the central tragedy, 00:02:23.919 --> 00:02:25.939 really the thing that shapes everything, is the 00:02:25.939 --> 00:02:28.819 death of his mother, Henriette Gagnon. She died 00:02:28.819 --> 00:02:31.400 in childbirth when he was only seven. And that 00:02:31.400 --> 00:02:35.020 loss, which he felt so intensely, seems to have 00:02:35.020 --> 00:02:37.840 just permanently skewed his emotional life. It 00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:40.080 wasn't just the loss, though. It was the environment 00:02:40.080 --> 00:02:43.419 that came after. His father, Sherabin Bale, was 00:02:43.419 --> 00:02:46.740 an advocate, a landowner, you know, firmly bourgeois. 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:49.659 And Stendhal carried a lifelong antipathy toward 00:02:49.659 --> 00:02:52.759 him. He famously called his father unimaginative. 00:02:53.240 --> 00:02:55.740 Which, for an intellect as restless and romantic 00:02:55.740 --> 00:02:58.439 as Bale's, was probably the worst insult you 00:02:58.439 --> 00:03:00.780 could possibly level at someone. Exactly. That 00:03:00.780 --> 00:03:03.080 early sense of psychological isolation, that 00:03:03.080 --> 00:03:05.960 rebellion against the stifling order of the French 00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:08.439 provincial bourgeoisie, that really becomes the 00:03:08.439 --> 00:03:10.699 engine for his fiction. It does. He's rebelling 00:03:10.699 --> 00:03:13.539 against the mundane, the regulated, the predictable, 00:03:13.699 --> 00:03:16.159 which is exactly what his protagonists, like 00:03:16.159 --> 00:03:18.340 Julia Sorrell in The Red and the Black, are doing 00:03:18.340 --> 00:03:21.639 constantly. But he did have one steady emotional 00:03:21.639 --> 00:03:25.219 anchor. Right. His younger sister, Pauline. Yes, 00:03:25.259 --> 00:03:28.979 Pauline. He maintained a steady, very detailed 00:03:28.979 --> 00:03:31.039 correspondence with her throughout his life. 00:03:31.099 --> 00:03:33.800 That connection is absolutely vital. And you 00:03:33.800 --> 00:03:36.219 can sort of see his later focus on female characters 00:03:36.219 --> 00:03:38.560 who are often so much more active and intellectually 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:41.099 complex than the men. You can see it stemming 00:03:41.099 --> 00:03:42.659 from that foundational connection. I mean, they 00:03:42.659 --> 00:03:45.060 aren't just plot devices for him. They are intensely 00:03:45.060 --> 00:03:48.780 observed, fully realized human beings. And this 00:03:48.780 --> 00:03:51.800 internal tension he had. His bourgeois background 00:03:51.800 --> 00:03:55.000 versus the radical emotional life he craved that 00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:57.860 also shaped his politics, right? Yeah. This ambiguous 00:03:57.860 --> 00:04:00.520 attitude toward Napoleon and the monarchy. Completely. 00:04:00.520 --> 00:04:02.740 He had one foot planted in the establishment 00:04:02.740 --> 00:04:05.000 through his family, but his head and his heart 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:06.919 were already drifting toward these revolutionary 00:04:06.919 --> 00:04:09.699 liberal ideals. And that tension became very, 00:04:09.740 --> 00:04:12.139 very real when he encountered the French Empire. 00:04:12.599 --> 00:04:15.219 The military and theatrical worlds of Napoleon's 00:04:15.219 --> 00:04:17.899 France were, as our sources say, a total revelation 00:04:17.899 --> 00:04:20.939 for him. Absolutely. The army gave him a stage 00:04:20.939 --> 00:04:22.800 for the ambition and the intellectual energy 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:25.360 that provincial Grenoble could never, ever satisfy. 00:04:25.699 --> 00:04:28.220 He served as an assistant war commissioner, an 00:04:28.220 --> 00:04:30.480 auditor with the Conseil d 'Etat. But it was 00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:33.139 his participation in the military campaigns that 00:04:33.139 --> 00:04:35.920 really forged the analytical, disciplined mind. 00:04:36.509 --> 00:04:38.509 that would later be capable of writing realism. 00:04:38.750 --> 00:04:41.430 And we have to pause here because his time during 00:04:41.430 --> 00:04:45.050 the disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia provides 00:04:45.050 --> 00:04:48.310 the ultimate anecdote, illustrating his famous 00:04:48.310 --> 00:04:51.449 sang -froid, that cool -headed self -possession. 00:04:51.589 --> 00:04:53.730 This is where we start building the case for 00:04:53.730 --> 00:04:57.189 Stendhal as the originator of realism. He witnessed 00:04:57.189 --> 00:05:00.649 the burning of Moscow. An event of almost apocalyptic 00:05:00.649 --> 00:05:04.250 romantic scale. Right. But the profound insight 00:05:04.250 --> 00:05:06.350 into his character comes during the winter retreat 00:05:06.350 --> 00:05:08.889 that followed, which was one of the most catastrophic 00:05:08.889 --> 00:05:12.430 military failures in history. Starvation, disease, 00:05:12.709 --> 00:05:15.750 freezing chaos everywhere. And the sources emphasize 00:05:15.750 --> 00:05:18.189 that he remarkably maintained his daily routine, 00:05:18.449 --> 00:05:21.569 including shaving every single day. Shaving? 00:05:22.139 --> 00:05:24.639 Amidst total human breakdown, he clung to that 00:05:24.639 --> 00:05:27.259 tiny, disciplined, almost absurd act of civilization. 00:05:27.699 --> 00:05:29.519 So if I'm following you, you're arguing this 00:05:29.519 --> 00:05:31.800 isn't just some quirky detail. This is the core 00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:34.579 of his literary methodology, isn't it? Precisely. 00:05:34.579 --> 00:05:38.399 The ability to observe and impose order on overwhelming 00:05:38.399 --> 00:05:41.879 chaos. Literary realists didn't just report on 00:05:41.879 --> 00:05:44.759 events. They selected details that spoke volumes 00:05:44.759 --> 00:05:47.540 about human character. And his insistence on 00:05:47.540 --> 00:05:51.160 shaving suggests this iron will. This dedication 00:05:51.160 --> 00:05:53.660 to mental clarity, to maintaining a sense of 00:05:53.660 --> 00:05:56.199 self above the environmental pressures. That 00:05:56.199 --> 00:05:58.540 clinical distance from personal disaster is the 00:05:58.540 --> 00:06:01.319 exact same distance he later applied to his character's 00:06:01.319 --> 00:06:03.839 emotional disasters. And it wasn't just a psychological 00:06:03.839 --> 00:06:07.339 posture. His clear -headedness proved pragmatically 00:06:07.339 --> 00:06:09.980 useful. He saved his own life and the lives of 00:06:09.980 --> 00:06:12.379 others. He did. During the crossing of the Berezina 00:06:12.379 --> 00:06:14.699 River, he was the commissioner of war supplies 00:06:14.699 --> 00:06:16.980 so he could see the logistical nightmare unfolding. 00:06:17.839 --> 00:06:20.939 The main pontoon bridge was overwhelmed. Thousands 00:06:20.939 --> 00:06:23.699 were dying. And Stendhal, keeping his head, identified 00:06:23.699 --> 00:06:26.459 a usable fort across the river and led his companions 00:06:26.459 --> 00:06:28.680 to safety. He used practical on -the -ground 00:06:28.680 --> 00:06:31.519 observation, the hallmark of a realist, to survive 00:06:31.519 --> 00:06:34.139 the romantic tragedy of the campaign. So he returns 00:06:34.139 --> 00:06:37.040 to Paris. A competent survivor, his admiration 00:06:37.040 --> 00:06:39.680 for Napoleon still intact, he saw the emperor 00:06:39.680 --> 00:06:42.240 as the ultimate self -made man. But then, the 00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:45.000 fall of Napoleon in 1814 meant the end of that 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:47.720 theatrical world he loved, so he made a defining 00:06:47.720 --> 00:06:50.550 choice. He left France for Italy. And this was 00:06:50.550 --> 00:06:52.550 the period he considered the happiest of his 00:06:52.550 --> 00:06:55.009 entire life. Yeah. He settled in Milan, stayed 00:06:55.009 --> 00:06:58.829 until 1821, and only left because his anti -Austrian 00:06:58.829 --> 00:07:02.350 sentiments and his fear of getting involved with 00:07:02.350 --> 00:07:04.629 the Carbonari. The revolutionary secret societies. 00:07:04.889 --> 00:07:07.430 Exactly. It just made his position too precarious. 00:07:07.430 --> 00:07:10.769 His attachment to Italy was profound. He saw 00:07:10.769 --> 00:07:14.209 it as a place of genuine, unvarnished human emotion. 00:07:15.129 --> 00:07:18.029 More sincere, more passionate than the stiff, 00:07:18.129 --> 00:07:20.509 politically reactionary atmosphere of Restoration 00:07:20.509 --> 00:07:23.089 France. He romanticized Italy as the home of 00:07:23.089 --> 00:07:25.329 truth. And he used that difference in emotional 00:07:25.329 --> 00:07:27.829 temperament as a literary tool. Right, there's 00:07:27.829 --> 00:07:30.290 that famous slightly toning cheek aside he puts 00:07:30.290 --> 00:07:32.610 into the Charterhouse of Parma. A novel he wrote 00:07:32.610 --> 00:07:35.949 in a feverish 52 days, which is incredible. He 00:07:35.949 --> 00:07:37.889 describes a character driven to contemplate suicide 00:07:37.889 --> 00:07:41.009 out of despair over love. And he feels he has 00:07:41.009 --> 00:07:42.910 to explain this intense reaction to his French 00:07:42.910 --> 00:07:45.730 readers. Yes, he says, and I'm paraphrasing here. 00:07:45.829 --> 00:07:47.790 To make this clear to my French readers, I must 00:07:47.790 --> 00:07:50.670 explain that in Italy, a country very far from 00:07:50.670 --> 00:07:53.910 us, people are still driven to despair by love. 00:07:54.170 --> 00:07:56.889 The idea that he had to clarify the mere possibility 00:07:56.889 --> 00:08:00.110 of dying from heartbreak to a Parisian audience 00:08:00.110 --> 00:08:03.730 says everything. It does. It highlights his belief 00:08:03.730 --> 00:08:07.209 that true, unadulterated passion had been suffocated 00:08:07.209 --> 00:08:10.170 by French society, while Italy still offered 00:08:10.170 --> 00:08:12.230 an environment where emotions were visceral, 00:08:12.290 --> 00:08:15.470 even destructive. And this emotional sensibility 00:08:15.470 --> 00:08:17.870 linked directly to his political identity. He 00:08:17.870 --> 00:08:21.360 was an avowed liberal. Anticlerical. Highly critical 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:23.959 of the Bourbon Restoration. His time in Italy 00:08:23.959 --> 00:08:26.660 convinced him that romanticism, with its focus 00:08:26.660 --> 00:08:29.560 on intense emotional life and freedom, was the 00:08:29.560 --> 00:08:32.440 perfect aesthetic counterpart to political liberalism. 00:08:32.500 --> 00:08:35.080 He saw the fight for political freedom mirrored 00:08:35.080 --> 00:08:37.019 in the fight for artistic freedom, and his politics 00:08:37.019 --> 00:08:39.340 had very real consequences for his career. They 00:08:39.340 --> 00:08:41.360 did. You mentioned he was appointed French consul 00:08:41.360 --> 00:08:43.740 in Trieste in 1830. And was promptly rejected. 00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:47.259 Yes. Prince Metternich. The powerful Austrian 00:08:47.259 --> 00:08:50.419 foreign minister, the symbol of European conservatism, 00:08:50.480 --> 00:08:53.279 refused to grant him the exquiter, the official 00:08:53.279 --> 00:08:57.059 recognition. Aye. Explicitly because of Stendhal's 00:08:57.059 --> 00:08:59.940 known liberalism and his outspoken anti -clerical 00:08:59.940 --> 00:09:02.460 views. This was not a man who kept his opinions 00:09:02.460 --> 00:09:04.960 to himself. He was publicly identified with the 00:09:04.960 --> 00:09:07.039 movement that threatened the established order. 00:09:07.320 --> 00:09:10.019 So we have this precise, cool -headed veteran 00:09:10.019 --> 00:09:12.820 who is at the same time a passionate, politically 00:09:12.820 --> 00:09:16.690 engaged liberal. Let's turn now to his famously 00:09:16.690 --> 00:09:20.809 complex romantic life. The dandy, the obsessive 00:09:20.809 --> 00:09:23.710 womanizer, and the secret feminist. He was a 00:09:23.710 --> 00:09:26.110 man consumed by the chase and by the analysis 00:09:26.110 --> 00:09:28.789 of the chase. His nonfiction treatise, Delamore, 00:09:28.929 --> 00:09:30.830 which we'll explore in detail, was basically 00:09:30.830 --> 00:09:33.250 an attempt to rationalize his own unrequited 00:09:33.250 --> 00:09:35.750 passion for Mathilde, Countess Dombowska. And 00:09:35.750 --> 00:09:37.450 he suffered profoundly from what he called the 00:09:37.450 --> 00:09:39.970 restlessness in spirit his pursuits caused. Yet 00:09:39.970 --> 00:09:42.009 he just had to categorize that suffering intellectually. 00:09:42.649 --> 00:09:44.690 And it wasn't just the sophisticated European 00:09:44.690 --> 00:09:47.629 women. The source of mention his deep distress 00:09:47.629 --> 00:09:50.190 when his childhood friend, Victorine, married. 00:09:50.629 --> 00:09:53.450 He described her to his sister Pauline as the 00:09:53.450 --> 00:09:56.509 woman of his dreams. It shows the depth of the 00:09:56.509 --> 00:09:58.629 sentimental life he was trying to cage with a 00:09:58.629 --> 00:10:01.230 rational analysis. His personal life was often 00:10:01.230 --> 00:10:03.789 messy, but his intellectual observations about 00:10:03.789 --> 00:10:06.419 women were revolutionary for the time. This is 00:10:06.419 --> 00:10:08.600 why figures like Simone de Beauvoir later spoke 00:10:08.600 --> 00:10:10.840 so highly of his empathy. In The Second Sex, 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:13.899 right? Exactly. She gave him significant credit, 00:10:13.980 --> 00:10:16.620 arguing that he genuinely perceived a woman as 00:10:16.620 --> 00:10:19.179 simply a human being, rather than a collection 00:10:19.179 --> 00:10:21.779 of social roles or a function of male desire. 00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:24.720 That's a powerful distinction. He saw the individual 00:10:24.720 --> 00:10:27.600 humanity first. De Beauvoir even called him a 00:10:27.600 --> 00:10:30.370 feminist writer. primarily citing his rebellious 00:10:30.370 --> 00:10:32.649 heroines. Characters like Mathilde Lamolle in 00:10:32.649 --> 00:10:35.169 The Red and the Black, who actively carve out 00:10:35.169 --> 00:10:37.549 their own destinies and refuse to be defined 00:10:37.549 --> 00:10:41.350 by patriarchal expectations. But Beauvoir, ever 00:10:41.350 --> 00:10:43.830 the sharp critic, she offered a nuanced view. 00:10:44.070 --> 00:10:47.330 She did. She noted that while he championed women's 00:10:47.330 --> 00:10:50.009 freedom and equality of spirit, his ultimate 00:10:50.009 --> 00:10:52.769 vision for them was still, generally, limited 00:10:52.769 --> 00:10:55.529 to marriage. So it shows the limits of his era. 00:10:55.899 --> 00:10:57.840 and maybe the limits of his own imagination regarding 00:10:57.840 --> 00:11:00.740 social structure. His radicalism was psychological, 00:11:01.120 --> 00:11:03.220 not fully structural. I think that's a perfect 00:11:03.220 --> 00:11:05.700 way to put it. It's a fantastic insight. Now, 00:11:05.720 --> 00:11:07.820 before we move to his formal concepts, we have 00:11:07.820 --> 00:11:10.139 to acknowledge the immense physical toll his 00:11:10.139 --> 00:11:12.899 life took. The sources detail his protracted 00:11:12.899 --> 00:11:14.980 health struggles, starting with syphilis, contracted 00:11:14.980 --> 00:11:18.360 in 1808. This is a truly painful chapter, and 00:11:18.360 --> 00:11:20.340 it must have fueled his need for self -analysis. 00:11:20.480 --> 00:11:23.100 The treatments he received were, by modern standards, 00:11:23.320 --> 00:11:26.960 horrific. 19th century methods. He was taking 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:29.740 iodide of potassium and, crucially, quicksilver 00:11:29.740 --> 00:11:32.460 mercury to combat the disease. And he was the 00:11:32.460 --> 00:11:34.559 clinical observer, even of his own suffering. 00:11:34.740 --> 00:11:37.440 He meticulously documented the consequences in 00:11:37.440 --> 00:11:40.340 his journals. Swollen armpits, difficulty swallowing, 00:11:40.399 --> 00:11:43.580 agonizing pains in his testicles, chronic sleeplessness. 00:11:43.799 --> 00:11:47.139 And profound neurological symptoms. Giddiness, 00:11:47.139 --> 00:11:50.399 roaring in the ears, a racing pulse, and tremors 00:11:50.399 --> 00:11:52.700 so severe he admitted he could scarcely hold 00:11:52.700 --> 00:11:55.720 a fork or a pen. And modern historians of medicine 00:11:55.720 --> 00:11:58.649 believe that many of those symptoms The tremors 00:11:58.649 --> 00:12:01.110 and vertigo were more likely for mercury poisoning 00:12:01.110 --> 00:12:04.190 than the disease itself. He was being constantly, 00:12:04.250 --> 00:12:06.490 systematically poisoned by his doctors while 00:12:06.490 --> 00:12:08.750 traveling across Europe, desperately seeking 00:12:08.750 --> 00:12:12.090 cures. This constant physical agony must have 00:12:12.090 --> 00:12:14.409 contributed to his need for intellectual control 00:12:14.409 --> 00:12:16.830 and escape. Which brings us to the ultimate form 00:12:16.830 --> 00:12:20.149 of escape and control, the pseudonym. The man 00:12:20.149 --> 00:12:22.490 who defined realism was obsessed with hiding 00:12:22.490 --> 00:12:25.799 his true identity. He used over a hundred aliases. 00:12:25.980 --> 00:12:28.480 This wasn't just a literary quirk. It was a psychological 00:12:28.480 --> 00:12:31.059 compulsion, a way to live multiple lives at once. 00:12:31.240 --> 00:12:33.480 The sources list names from the formal, like 00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:36.080 Dominique or Salviati, to the completely absurd. 00:12:36.320 --> 00:12:38.559 Louis -Alexandre Bombette, Don Phlegm, William 00:12:38.559 --> 00:12:40.720 Crocodile. William Crocodile. It speaks to the 00:12:40.720 --> 00:12:42.899 theatrical quality of his mind. And the name 00:12:42.899 --> 00:12:45.580 we know him by, Stendhal, was borrowed from the 00:12:45.580 --> 00:12:48.039 German city of Stendhal, the birthplace of the 00:12:48.039 --> 00:12:51.210 art historian Johann Joachim Minklmann. And he 00:12:51.210 --> 00:12:53.710 added the H just to make sure the Germanic pronunciation 00:12:53.710 --> 00:12:56.730 was clear. He was that precise. He viewed life 00:12:56.730 --> 00:13:00.389 itself as a grand, complicated game. He advised 00:13:00.389 --> 00:13:03.490 himself in his private writings, look upon life 00:13:03.490 --> 00:13:06.610 as a masked ball. It was a deliberate strategy 00:13:06.610 --> 00:13:09.690 to achieve Baalism. the term later coined for 00:13:09.690 --> 00:13:12.370 that intense, self -proclaimed egotism and self 00:13:12.370 --> 00:13:14.850 -analysis you see in his characters. The irony 00:13:14.850 --> 00:13:16.909 is so rich, isn't it? The man who wanted to be 00:13:16.909 --> 00:13:19.250 a lanky blonde German who hid behind countless 00:13:19.250 --> 00:13:21.850 masks, who advocated for the subjective pleasure 00:13:21.850 --> 00:13:24.269 of living anonymously, is celebrated precisely 00:13:24.269 --> 00:13:27.570 for his capacity for unflinching, objective realism. 00:13:27.990 --> 00:13:30.490 His deepest personal truth was found in the fictional 00:13:30.490 --> 00:13:33.929 disguise. That tension defines his genius. That 00:13:33.929 --> 00:13:36.169 is the perfect hinge point. The man is defined 00:13:36.169 --> 00:13:39.100 by his masks, but his legacy is defined by his 00:13:39.100 --> 00:13:41.740 clarity. Let's move from the personal identity 00:13:41.740 --> 00:13:44.059 to the intellectual framework he created or inspired. 00:13:44.340 --> 00:13:46.139 Okay. So now we transition from the biography 00:13:46.139 --> 00:13:48.240 of the masked man to the psychological concepts 00:13:48.240 --> 00:13:50.500 he formalized, starting with his own rational 00:13:50.500 --> 00:13:53.639 analysis of love, crystallization. Yes, from 00:13:53.639 --> 00:13:57.059 Delamore, Polition 1822. It's Stenhall's attempt 00:13:57.059 --> 00:13:59.779 to reduce romantic passion, the very thing that 00:13:59.779 --> 00:14:02.460 caused him so much personal pain, to a systematic, 00:14:02.700 --> 00:14:05.139 almost scientific process. It's a phenomenal 00:14:05.139 --> 00:14:08.139 attempt at intellectual containment. It is. Stendhal 00:14:08.139 --> 00:14:10.559 argues that falling in love is a mental process 00:14:10.559 --> 00:14:13.919 of idealization, where the mind attributes imaginary 00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:16.779 perfection to the object of affection. And he 00:14:16.779 --> 00:14:19.159 uses a famous analogy to explain this. The journey 00:14:19.159 --> 00:14:22.639 from Bologna to Rome. I find this analogy incredibly 00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:25.100 helpful because it grounds the abstract. It does. 00:14:25.480 --> 00:14:28.059 Bologna in this framework represents indifference. 00:14:28.220 --> 00:14:30.059 It's the pre -romantic state where you're just 00:14:30.059 --> 00:14:32.059 observing the person and your imagination is 00:14:32.059 --> 00:14:34.980 dormant. And Rome, by contrast, is the destination. 00:14:35.939 --> 00:14:39.179 Perfect love, where the object is entirely idealized 00:14:39.179 --> 00:14:41.120 in your mind. And the key is that the departure 00:14:41.120 --> 00:14:43.679 from Bologna, that initial spark, the shift from 00:14:43.679 --> 00:14:46.679 indifference to fixation, is instinctive. It's 00:14:46.679 --> 00:14:49.120 not willed. Once your mind fixes on the person, 00:14:49.299 --> 00:14:51.639 the process of crystallization begins. And he 00:14:51.639 --> 00:14:53.639 compares this process to what happens to a tree 00:14:53.639 --> 00:14:56.639 branch left in a salt mine. Exactly. Over time, 00:14:56.759 --> 00:14:59.019 the branch becomes coated with sparkling, beautiful 00:14:59.019 --> 00:15:02.240 crystals. The bare branch is the person's true 00:15:02.240 --> 00:15:06.029 self. The crystals are all the imagined perfections 00:15:06.029 --> 00:15:08.429 we project onto them. And he breaks this down 00:15:08.429 --> 00:15:11.730 into four defined stages, a roadmap of how we 00:15:11.730 --> 00:15:14.429 fool ourselves into passion. Let's walk through 00:15:14.429 --> 00:15:18.190 the journey. Okay. Stage one is admiration. This 00:15:18.190 --> 00:15:20.710 is the initial perception of qualities. You see 00:15:20.710 --> 00:15:23.309 something about the person, a talent, a physical 00:15:23.309 --> 00:15:26.289 attribute, a witty remark that is pleasant and 00:15:26.289 --> 00:15:29.149 impressive. It's simple, objective observation. 00:15:29.649 --> 00:15:32.639 Stage two is acknowledgement. The process becomes 00:15:32.639 --> 00:15:34.679 reciprocal, or at least you start to think it 00:15:34.679 --> 00:15:37.179 could be. Right. This is the recognition that 00:15:37.179 --> 00:15:39.639 it would be pleasant, even beneficial, to gain 00:15:39.639 --> 00:15:42.000 the loved one's interest. The potential for interaction 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:44.620 shifts the dynamic from passive admiration to 00:15:44.620 --> 00:15:47.059 active personal interest. Then comes stage three, 00:15:47.179 --> 00:15:49.629 hope. This is where the imagination really takes 00:15:49.629 --> 00:15:51.909 over. It takes flight. Hope envisions gaining 00:15:51.909 --> 00:15:54.629 the person's love, dreaming of a future shared 00:15:54.629 --> 00:15:57.129 with them. The possibilities begin to overshadow 00:15:57.129 --> 00:15:59.149 the observed realities. You start weaving stories. 00:15:59.509 --> 00:16:02.629 And finally, stage four, delight. And Stendhal 00:16:02.629 --> 00:16:06.139 is really specific here. He is. This is the delight 00:16:06.139 --> 00:16:09.059 derived from overreading the beauty and merit 00:16:09.059 --> 00:16:12.480 of the person whose love one hopes to win. This 00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:15.500 is the full crystallization moment. The mind 00:16:15.500 --> 00:16:18.139 has finished coating the bare branch with imaginary 00:16:18.139 --> 00:16:21.860 diamonds. The person is now flawless, magnificent, 00:16:22.200 --> 00:16:25.100 perfect in your subjective view. It's fascinating, 00:16:25.259 --> 00:16:27.740 isn't it? For a writer credited with realism, 00:16:28.019 --> 00:16:31.039 his major psychological theory is all about the 00:16:31.039 --> 00:16:34.080 necessary function of illusion in love. You could 00:16:34.080 --> 00:16:36.559 argue that crystallization is the first modern 00:16:36.559 --> 00:16:39.340 systematic theory of cognitive bias in romantic 00:16:39.340 --> 00:16:42.620 attraction. It explains why six months later, 00:16:42.759 --> 00:16:45.220 when the crystals start to dissolve, the person 00:16:45.220 --> 00:16:47.559 you loved seems so utterly different from the 00:16:47.559 --> 00:16:49.419 person standing in front of you. Because you 00:16:49.419 --> 00:16:51.059 were in love with your own creation. Exactly. 00:16:51.059 --> 00:16:53.419 That intellectual leap from suffering intense 00:16:53.419 --> 00:16:56.059 heartbreak to rationally charting the steps of 00:16:56.059 --> 00:16:58.960 that suffering is peak Baalism. And the origin 00:16:58.960 --> 00:17:01.179 story of this whole concept is pure Stenhalian 00:17:01.179 --> 00:17:03.620 theater. Oh, it's the ultimate synthesis of the 00:17:03.620 --> 00:17:05.940 mundane and the profound. He was talking to a 00:17:05.940 --> 00:17:07.940 man named Girardi during a trip to the Salzburg 00:17:07.940 --> 00:17:10.690 salt mine. While describing the geological process 00:17:10.690 --> 00:17:13.990 of salt crystal formation, the analogy just struck 00:17:13.990 --> 00:17:16.970 him. He immediately detailed the entire process. 00:17:17.410 --> 00:17:20.650 Bologna, Rome, the four stacks on the back of 00:17:20.650 --> 00:17:22.609 a playing card. On the back of a playing card, 00:17:22.710 --> 00:17:25.490 it's the perfect snapshot of the man. Intellectual 00:17:25.490 --> 00:17:28.549 genius applied casually, obsessively, and recorded 00:17:28.549 --> 00:17:31.960 fleetingly. It is. Now, if crystallization is 00:17:31.960 --> 00:17:34.259 about the internal, analytical construction of 00:17:34.259 --> 00:17:37.019 love, we have to shift to the concept named after 00:17:37.019 --> 00:17:39.960 him, which is all about the external, overwhelming, 00:17:40.220 --> 00:17:43.460 and profoundly physical reaction to art. Stendhal 00:17:43.460 --> 00:17:46.490 syndrome. This shift is a beautiful contrast. 00:17:46.869 --> 00:17:49.730 We go from the mind idealizing a person to the 00:17:49.730 --> 00:17:51.589 body collapsing under the weight of cultural 00:17:51.589 --> 00:17:53.730 perfection. Precisely. The Stenthal syndrome 00:17:53.730 --> 00:17:55.829 is named for an experience he had in Florence 00:17:55.829 --> 00:17:58.430 in 1817, which he later documented in Naples 00:17:58.430 --> 00:18:00.970 in Florence, a journey from Milan to Reggio. 00:18:01.480 --> 00:18:03.339 What exactly happened when he was confronted 00:18:03.339 --> 00:18:05.319 with the concentration of history there? He was 00:18:05.319 --> 00:18:08.059 utterly overcome. The specific location was the 00:18:08.059 --> 00:18:10.440 Basilica of Santa Croce, which is just a treasure 00:18:10.440 --> 00:18:12.819 trove of art and history. It's got the tombs 00:18:12.819 --> 00:18:15.400 of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli. So cultural 00:18:15.400 --> 00:18:18.799 density overload. Exactly. And upon leaving the 00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:22.259 porch of that basilica, he was hit by this profound 00:18:22.259 --> 00:18:25.440 psychosomatic reaction. How did he describe the 00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:28.099 feeling? I mean, the physical feeling. He documented 00:18:28.099 --> 00:18:31.000 a fierce palpitation of the heart. an unnerving 00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:33.599 sense that the wellspring of life was dried up 00:18:33.599 --> 00:18:37.019 within me. This was coupled with severe dizziness, 00:18:37.299 --> 00:18:40.680 giddiness, and a constant fear of falling to 00:18:40.680 --> 00:18:44.059 the ground. So a panic attack. Induced by sheer 00:18:44.059 --> 00:18:47.220 cultural overload, the density of genius and 00:18:47.220 --> 00:18:50.140 history compacted into one space. It sounds like 00:18:50.140 --> 00:18:52.019 it. It's almost the physical opposite of the 00:18:52.019 --> 00:18:54.579 cool clinical self -control he maintained while 00:18:54.579 --> 00:18:57.279 shaving during the Russian campaign. Right. It 00:18:57.279 --> 00:18:59.160 suggests that while he could impose order on 00:18:59.160 --> 00:19:01.930 chaos, he struggled to contain the intense beauty 00:19:01.930 --> 00:19:04.329 of human accomplishment. That tension is key. 00:19:04.509 --> 00:19:07.269 He could rationalize love, but he couldn't rationalize 00:19:07.269 --> 00:19:09.990 cultural awe. His experience remained an interesting 00:19:09.990 --> 00:19:12.430 anecdote for over a century until it was formally 00:19:12.430 --> 00:19:15.250 recognized. By the Italian psychiatrist Graziella 00:19:15.250 --> 00:19:19.549 Magrini. Yes, in 1979. The condition, a specific 00:19:19.549 --> 00:19:22.430 set of symptoms including a racing heart, Nausea, 00:19:22.430 --> 00:19:25.710 dizziness, fainting, primarily affecting sensitive 00:19:25.710 --> 00:19:27.930 first -time visitors to cities like Florence, 00:19:28.109 --> 00:19:31.369 was diagnosed and officially named Stenthal syndrome. 00:19:31.710 --> 00:19:34.490 So we have two remarkable psychological legacies 00:19:34.490 --> 00:19:38.109 attached to his name. Crystallization, the internal 00:19:38.109 --> 00:19:40.369 rational method for dissecting the illusion of 00:19:40.369 --> 00:19:43.390 love, detailed on a playing card. And Stenthal 00:19:43.390 --> 00:19:46.259 syndrome. The external, involuntary physical 00:19:46.259 --> 00:19:49.019 surrender to the reality of overwhelming beauty, 00:19:49.259 --> 00:19:52.059 documented on the steps of Santa Croce. It perfectly 00:19:52.059 --> 00:19:54.880 captures the split nature of the man, the analytical 00:19:54.880 --> 00:19:57.140 scientist trying to contain the romantic soul. 00:19:57.380 --> 00:20:00.019 He was perpetually trying to be both Bologna 00:20:00.019 --> 00:20:02.539 and Rome at the same time, maintaining indifference 00:20:02.539 --> 00:20:04.980 while experiencing perfect rapture. That sets 00:20:04.980 --> 00:20:07.319 the stage beautifully for his ultimate contribution. 00:20:07.980 --> 00:20:10.059 the literature that synthesized these two forces. 00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:12.279 Yes, let's get into the novels. Moving now to 00:20:12.279 --> 00:20:14.119 his literary identity. And it's important to 00:20:14.119 --> 00:20:15.579 remember that Stendhal was not a blockbuster 00:20:15.579 --> 00:20:18.380 seller in his time. He famously dedicated his 00:20:18.380 --> 00:20:20.839 work to the happy few, a phrase he wrote in English 00:20:20.839 --> 00:20:24.089 in the original text. And this is often misinterpreted 00:20:24.089 --> 00:20:27.670 as pure literary elitism. But it's not, is it? 00:20:27.789 --> 00:20:30.630 No. The irony is crucial. Our sources confirm 00:20:30.630 --> 00:20:33.650 this phrase is almost certainly an ironic reference 00:20:33.650 --> 00:20:37.569 to Oliver Goldsmith's 1766 novel The Vicar of 00:20:37.569 --> 00:20:40.109 Wakefield. Okay, unpack that for us. In that 00:20:40.109 --> 00:20:43.009 book, the phrase ironically refers to the tiny 00:20:43.009 --> 00:20:45.230 number of people who actually read the title 00:20:45.230 --> 00:20:48.470 character's obscure pedantic treatise on monogamy. 00:20:48.799 --> 00:20:50.960 So Stendhal wasn't necessarily being arrogant. 00:20:51.079 --> 00:20:53.619 He was being commercially realistic, maybe even 00:20:53.619 --> 00:20:56.900 self -deprecating. Exactly. He knew his precise, 00:20:56.960 --> 00:20:59.440 highly analytical style was not going to appeal 00:20:59.440 --> 00:21:01.720 to the mass audience of the high romantic era 00:21:01.720 --> 00:21:04.200 who preferred the epic drama of writers like 00:21:04.200 --> 00:21:07.180 Victor Hugo. His genius would have to wait. He 00:21:07.180 --> 00:21:09.140 had a very clear sense of his own aesthetic position, 00:21:09.240 --> 00:21:12.500 though. the romantic realist. He did. He championed 00:21:12.500 --> 00:21:14.799 the romantic aesthetic in works like Racine and 00:21:14.799 --> 00:21:18.059 Shakespeare, arguing for freedom in form, praising 00:21:18.059 --> 00:21:20.279 Shakespeare's boundless scope and complexity, 00:21:20.660 --> 00:21:23.759 while unfavorably comparing him to Racine's strict 00:21:23.759 --> 00:21:26.259 classical rules. He wanted the passionate subject 00:21:26.259 --> 00:21:28.839 matter of romanticism, but with the disciplined 00:21:28.839 --> 00:21:31.700 observation of a scientist. That drive for discipline 00:21:31.700 --> 00:21:34.240 and precision led to the methodology that defines 00:21:34.240 --> 00:21:37.710 his lasting contribution. His novel, The Red 00:21:37.710 --> 00:21:39.670 and the Black, is considered his most notable 00:21:39.670 --> 00:21:42.809 work, a clear literary tribute to the world of 00:21:42.809 --> 00:21:45.089 ambition and political flux created by Napoleon. 00:21:45.430 --> 00:21:47.109 And this is where we need to unpack the theory. 00:21:50.120 --> 00:21:52.700 discusses Stenhall's profound metaphor for the 00:21:52.700 --> 00:21:55.599 novel. The novel as a mirror being carried in 00:21:55.599 --> 00:21:58.440 a basket. This is the foundational idea of Stenhallian 00:21:58.440 --> 00:22:00.859 realism. OK, let's break this down. What does 00:22:00.859 --> 00:22:03.039 the mirror in a basket tell us about his realism 00:22:03.039 --> 00:22:05.319 compared to just saying the novel reflects reality? 00:22:05.640 --> 00:22:08.059 It tells us two crucial things. First, the mirror 00:22:08.059 --> 00:22:10.700 reflects reality. That is the objective requirement 00:22:10.700 --> 00:22:13.160 of realism. Sure. But the second part, the basket. 00:22:13.800 --> 00:22:15.740 acknowledges the inherent subjectivity of the 00:22:15.740 --> 00:22:18.839 author the writer is carrying the mirror selecting 00:22:18.839 --> 00:22:21.180 when and where to pull it out and show the world 00:22:21.180 --> 00:22:23.779 what is happening the artist's goal is not just 00:22:23.779 --> 00:22:27.200 documentation it is selection organization and 00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:30.539 judgment so it's edited reality the author selects 00:22:30.539 --> 00:22:32.519 and organizes reality for a cognitive function 00:22:32.519 --> 00:22:35.799 aiming for unity coherence and most importantly 00:22:35.799 --> 00:22:39.750 typicality Exactly. Stendhal's realism is about 00:22:39.750 --> 00:22:42.390 cognitive function, meaning the arrangement of 00:22:42.390 --> 00:22:45.009 facts is designed to make you, the reader, understand 00:22:45.009 --> 00:22:47.309 the psychology and the social forces at play. 00:22:47.509 --> 00:22:49.710 Which takes us directly to the assessment of 00:22:49.710 --> 00:22:52.710 Eric Auerbach, who argued that modern serious 00:22:52.710 --> 00:22:55.809 realism began with Stendhal and Balzac. Yes. 00:22:56.240 --> 00:22:58.380 We need to understand what Auerbach meant by 00:22:58.380 --> 00:23:01.200 serious realism. What differentiated Stendhal's 00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:03.900 approach from earlier novelists? Auerbach's key 00:23:03.900 --> 00:23:06.940 point in his seminal work, Mimesis, is that Stendhal 00:23:06.940 --> 00:23:09.279 integrated the volatile, specific historical 00:23:09.279 --> 00:23:12.140 moment into the very substance of his character's 00:23:12.140 --> 00:23:14.200 lives and actions in a way that had never been 00:23:14.200 --> 00:23:17.200 done before. Earlier realism often focused on 00:23:17.200 --> 00:23:20.420 social manners or generalized class issues. Stendhal 00:23:20.420 --> 00:23:23.240 focused on contingency. Give us a concrete example 00:23:23.240 --> 00:23:25.539 of this historical contingency in The Red and 00:23:25.539 --> 00:23:27.769 the Black. Auerbach points out that scenes in 00:23:27.769 --> 00:23:30.470 the novel are almost incomprehensible without 00:23:30.470 --> 00:23:32.509 a detailed knowledge of the political, social 00:23:32.509 --> 00:23:34.750 and economic stratification of that perfectly 00:23:34.750 --> 00:23:37.549 definite historical moment just before the July 00:23:37.549 --> 00:23:40.269 Revolution of 1830. So Julian Sorrell's entire 00:23:40.269 --> 00:23:43.009 dilemma, the conflict between ambition in the 00:23:43.009 --> 00:23:46.319 army, the red, and safety in the clergy. The 00:23:46.319 --> 00:23:49.380 black is a situation dictated entirely by the 00:23:49.380 --> 00:23:51.359 reactionary political environment of the restoration 00:23:51.359 --> 00:23:54.339 period. It is the pressure of history isn't just 00:23:54.339 --> 00:23:56.880 a backdrop. It's an active force shaping the 00:23:56.880 --> 00:23:59.819 individual's choices and ultimately their downfall. 00:24:00.180 --> 00:24:02.920 Stendhal was writing timeless psychological truth 00:24:02.920 --> 00:24:06.380 through meticulously contemporary political observation. 00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:09.160 He was using the novel as a serious vehicle for 00:24:09.160 --> 00:24:11.779 investigating the individual human being tracked 00:24:11.779 --> 00:24:14.549 within the rigid structures of a specific. volatile 00:24:14.549 --> 00:24:17.170 historical environment. And he applied that same 00:24:17.170 --> 00:24:20.470 observational rigor to nonfiction. He wrote A 00:24:20.470 --> 00:24:23.569 Life of Napoleon, A Life of Rossini. And that 00:24:23.569 --> 00:24:25.910 Rossini biography is valued more today for its 00:24:25.910 --> 00:24:28.170 wide -ranging musical criticism than for its 00:24:28.170 --> 00:24:30.670 strict historical accuracy. Right. It reflects 00:24:30.670 --> 00:24:33.190 his deep love of composers like Haydn, Mozart, 00:24:33.190 --> 00:24:35.569 and Rossini. Even his posthumously published 00:24:35.569 --> 00:24:38.210 autobiographies, Memoirs of an Egotist and The 00:24:38.210 --> 00:24:40.650 Life of Henry Broulard, carry this historical 00:24:40.650 --> 00:24:43.529 weight. Auerbach noted that Stendhal's self -analysis 00:24:43.559 --> 00:24:46.960 is far more closely and concretely connected 00:24:46.960 --> 00:24:49.640 with the politics, sociology, and economics of 00:24:49.640 --> 00:24:53.259 the period than similar autobiographies by Rousseau 00:24:53.259 --> 00:24:56.339 or Goethe. He was a product of history in a way 00:24:56.339 --> 00:24:58.220 that seemed to affect him more directly than 00:24:58.220 --> 00:25:00.500 anyone else. This makes the critical appraisal 00:25:00.500 --> 00:25:02.839 of his work so fascinating because it creates 00:25:02.839 --> 00:25:05.240 this massive divide between those who loved his 00:25:05.240 --> 00:25:08.220 insight and those who loathed his style. Oh, 00:25:08.359 --> 00:25:10.700 a huge divide. Let's start with the psychological 00:25:10.700 --> 00:25:14.390 champions. They are effusive. Hippolytain, a 00:25:14.390 --> 00:25:16.849 major French critic, argued that Stendhal's psychological 00:25:16.849 --> 00:25:19.410 portraits were real because they are complex, 00:25:19.750 --> 00:25:22.670 like living human beings. He saw the complexity 00:25:22.670 --> 00:25:24.990 of the internal struggle made manifest. And maybe 00:25:24.990 --> 00:25:26.809 the greatest endorsement came from Friedrich 00:25:26.809 --> 00:25:29.869 Nietzsche. Yes, in Beyond Good and Evil, he called 00:25:29.869 --> 00:25:33.380 Stendhal France's last great psychologist. Nietzsche 00:25:33.380 --> 00:25:35.859 valued him so highly he described encountering 00:25:35.859 --> 00:25:37.539 his work as one of the most beautiful accidents 00:25:37.539 --> 00:25:40.200 of his life, ranking the discovery nearly as 00:25:40.200 --> 00:25:42.759 high as Dostoevsky. That comparison to Dostoevsky 00:25:42.759 --> 00:25:45.140 is significant. For Nietzsche to put Stendhal 00:25:45.140 --> 00:25:47.819 in that company, despite his often cool, concise 00:25:47.819 --> 00:25:50.579 style, shows the power of his internal observations. 00:25:51.319 --> 00:25:54.220 Emil Zola, too, praised his psychological accuracy, 00:25:54.539 --> 00:25:56.920 though he also noted the structural implausibilities 00:25:56.920 --> 00:26:00.180 and Stendhal's very visible authorial intervention. 00:26:00.799 --> 00:26:03.200 The mirror in the basket principle. Basically, 00:26:03.319 --> 00:26:06.319 yes. But then we have the doubters, most notably 00:26:06.319 --> 00:26:09.920 Vladimir Nabokov, who was famously dismissive 00:26:09.920 --> 00:26:12.279 of what he saw as a clumsy, unpolished style. 00:26:12.900 --> 00:26:15.519 Nabokov was cutting, as always. He dismissed 00:26:15.519 --> 00:26:18.200 Stenthal as that pet of all those who like their 00:26:18.200 --> 00:26:20.220 French plane, asserting that the red and the 00:26:20.220 --> 00:26:23.339 black is much overrated and criticizing his paltry 00:26:23.339 --> 00:26:25.740 style. This highlights a fundamental schism in 00:26:25.740 --> 00:26:28.559 literary history. If a writer's prose is occasionally 00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:31.700 abrupt or lacks aesthetic beauty, does that diminish 00:26:31.700 --> 00:26:33.720 the profundity of their psychological insight? 00:26:34.109 --> 00:26:36.309 That's the argument, that his analysis is brilliant, 00:26:36.470 --> 00:26:38.930 but the vehicle is sometimes flawed. The insight 00:26:38.930 --> 00:26:41.230 overcomes the style. And this tension is what 00:26:41.230 --> 00:26:43.910 Eric Auerbach ultimately synthesized in his final 00:26:43.910 --> 00:26:46.109 appraisal. Okay, so how did Auerbach reconcile 00:26:46.109 --> 00:26:48.549 this? He gave what might be the most balanced 00:26:48.549 --> 00:26:51.890 yet most powerful critique. He admitted Stenhall 00:26:51.890 --> 00:26:54.690 was not quite a great figure, his ideas were 00:26:54.690 --> 00:26:58.089 erratic, and his style short -winded. He even 00:26:58.089 --> 00:27:00.730 said the prose only seldom wholly takes possession 00:27:00.730 --> 00:27:03.400 of and fixes the subject. It's an evaluation 00:27:03.400 --> 00:27:06.700 full of serious caveats. But despite these flaws, 00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:09.640 Auerbach deemed him historically indispensable. 00:27:10.039 --> 00:27:14.079 Why? Because Stendhal was compelled by his specific 00:27:14.079 --> 00:27:17.359 circumstances, his personal instability, his 00:27:17.359 --> 00:27:20.400 desire to escape the old order, his position 00:27:20.400 --> 00:27:23.680 in the tumultuous aftermath of Napoleon, to look 00:27:23.680 --> 00:27:26.190 at reality in a fundamentally new way. So his 00:27:26.190 --> 00:27:28.630 own psychology matched the needs of his chaotic 00:27:28.630 --> 00:27:31.390 historical moment. Exactly. His fluctuation between 00:27:31.390 --> 00:27:34.150 romantic rapture and cold, Bayless self -control 00:27:34.150 --> 00:27:35.910 meant he was the right person with the right 00:27:35.910 --> 00:27:38.170 tools at the right moment in history to come 00:27:38.170 --> 00:27:40.390 to terms with reality in a way which no one had 00:27:40.390 --> 00:27:42.809 done before him. He invented the means for the 00:27:42.809 --> 00:27:45.170 modern novel to become a serious tool for political 00:27:45.170 --> 00:27:47.309 and psychological investigation. An incredible 00:27:47.309 --> 00:27:49.690 legacy. Inventing realism almost by accident. 00:27:49.990 --> 00:27:52.970 In a way, yes. So what a profound and contradictory 00:27:52.970 --> 00:27:56.430 figure. We started with Marie -Henri Bale, the 00:27:56.430 --> 00:27:59.009 unhappy bourgeois child who found a theatrical 00:27:59.009 --> 00:28:02.289 stage in Napoleon's military machine. Displaying 00:28:02.289 --> 00:28:05.410 almost inhuman sang -froid while literally shaving 00:28:05.410 --> 00:28:07.529 during the catastrophic retreat from Moscow, 00:28:07.849 --> 00:28:11.089 he cherished Italy as the only place where despair 00:28:11.089 --> 00:28:13.730 was a viable reaction to love. He was a dandy 00:28:13.730 --> 00:28:16.190 and the egotist, yet recognized by Simone de 00:28:16.190 --> 00:28:19.009 Beauvoir as a proto -feminist for his perceptive 00:28:19.009 --> 00:28:21.769 insight into women's humanity. He was a man suffering 00:28:21.769 --> 00:28:23.910 from terrible medical treatments whose identity 00:28:23.910 --> 00:28:26.569 was so fractured he required over 100 aliases, 00:28:26.730 --> 00:28:28.890 forever trying to perfect the art of the mask. 00:28:29.400 --> 00:28:31.559 And his name defines the emotional and cultural 00:28:31.559 --> 00:28:34.480 landscape. He gave us crystallization, the four 00:28:34.480 --> 00:28:36.920 -step rational process detailed on the back of 00:28:36.920 --> 00:28:39.319 a playing card in Assault Mind that systematically 00:28:39.319 --> 00:28:42.039 explains how we idealize the love object in our 00:28:42.039 --> 00:28:44.140 minds. And he inspired the Stendhal syndrome, 00:28:44.299 --> 00:28:46.960 the terrifying physical surrender, the fierce 00:28:46.960 --> 00:28:49.059 palpitation of the heart and dizziness experienced 00:28:49.059 --> 00:28:52.000 when overwhelmed by sheer, magnificent cultural 00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:54.539 accomplishment and beauty. He was a novelist 00:28:54.539 --> 00:28:57.319 dedicated ironically to the happy few, whose 00:28:57.319 --> 00:29:01.109 prose was dismissed as paltry by Nabokov, but 00:29:01.109 --> 00:29:03.269 whose psychological vision was hailed by Nietzsche 00:29:03.269 --> 00:29:06.670 as the last great French mind. Ultimately, he 00:29:06.670 --> 00:29:09.009 was the author who convinced critics like Auerbach 00:29:09.009 --> 00:29:11.829 that modern realism required a novelist to weave 00:29:11.829 --> 00:29:14.750 the specific, complex, political, and social 00:29:14.750 --> 00:29:17.089 reality of their time into the very fabric of 00:29:17.089 --> 00:29:19.690 their characters' interior lives. It all hinges 00:29:19.690 --> 00:29:22.109 on that great Stenhalian tension between the 00:29:22.109 --> 00:29:25.210 mask and the mirror. We talk about balism, the 00:29:25.210 --> 00:29:27.109 term for the self -proclaimed egotism in his 00:29:27.109 --> 00:29:29.690 characters. And Stendhal famously advised himself 00:29:29.690 --> 00:29:33.069 to look upon life as a masked ball. This raises 00:29:33.069 --> 00:29:35.210 an important final question for you, the listener, 00:29:35.369 --> 00:29:38.569 to mull over. Stendhal was obsessed with aliases, 00:29:38.769 --> 00:29:41.390 disguise, and retreating behind a mask. Yet his 00:29:41.390 --> 00:29:43.789 greatest, most lasting value was identified by 00:29:43.789 --> 00:29:46.450 critics as his acute psychological realism. So 00:29:46.450 --> 00:29:48.289 what is the ultimate connection between deep, 00:29:48.329 --> 00:29:51.069 often painful, self -analysis, the egotism, and 00:29:51.069 --> 00:29:53.720 the fictional disguise of the novel? is the best, 00:29:53.740 --> 00:29:56.240 most objective way to truly reflect reality through 00:29:56.240 --> 00:29:58.380 fiction to first perfect the art of the mask. 00:29:58.579 --> 00:30:01.680 Does one need distance, emotional or perhaps 00:30:01.680 --> 00:30:05.019 physical distance, via the pseudonym to truly 00:30:05.019 --> 00:30:07.859 see and dissect the world objectively? Something 00:30:07.859 --> 00:30:10.059 to consider the next time you find yourself wearing 00:30:10.059 --> 00:30:13.019 one identity in public while observing the world 00:30:13.019 --> 00:30:14.779 with the precision of a completely different 00:30:14.779 --> 00:30:17.000 self. Thank you for joining us for this deep 00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:17.960 dive into Stendhal.