Sainte-Beuve, critique de George Sand

Sainte-Beuve took an early interest in the work of George Sand. Beginning with the publication of Indiana in 1832, he indicates his enthusiasm for this novel which he places within the genre of the so-called "roman intime." The roman intime is a concept Sainte-Beuve himself created, and with which he meant to draw a contrast with the Romantic works marked by philosophical and mystical doctrines, systems, hyperbole and grandiloquence. Having found Romantic works to be too far removed from the readers' preoccupations, Sainte-Beuve advocates a return to the observation of everyday reality through the roman intime. In 1833, his judgment of Lélia is less favorable: he deems Lélia to be a declamatory work further characterized by the spirit of system. With the publication of Lélia, Sainte-Beuve laments the opening of a political parenthesis in the career of George Sand. He will not return to the work of George Sand until after the Revolution of 1848, when, upon her return to Nohant, she will devote herself once again to the "peinture du cœur." (In French) (MB)