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Of all the 19th-century French writers, it is unquestionably Lamartine who showed the most interest and greatest regard for the ancient Indian literature that Europe discovered in the 1780s.
However, it is only much later, and only on the peripheries of his creative work, that the poet gave India the recognition he believed it deserved, stating, in Voyage en Orient in 1835, that: "The key of the whole is to be found in India; the birth of philosophy and the arts appears to me to date from there."
Indian inspiration in Lamartine's poetry is indeed rarely explicit and remains superficial: 'Hymne au soleil' in Poetical Meditations (1820) and 'Jehova ou l'idée de Dieu' in Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (1830) evoke the morning prayer of 'the Indian', while 'À Laurence' is a fusion of Asia and poetry: 'Are you from Europe? Are you from Asia? / Are you a dream? Are you poetry? / […] India reveals itself in your eyes […]' But, for Orient enthusiast Lamartine, who hoped to find his dream life of poetry, religion and heroism there, far-off India remains an abstract concept existing merely in books.
It is thus as a reader of Indian literature that Lamartine asserts himself. In Cours familier de littérature (1856-1869), an œuvre often discredited for its dryness, he remarkably starts off with Indian literature (discussions III-VI), more for axiological than chronological reasons, the latter being considered less original at the time: In his view, Indian literature offers the potential to reconcile oneself with the other, and oneself with oneself, so it is only fitting that it should serve as the introduction to a body of work he calls 'Course familier', sharing literature perpetuating, in a both political and religious utopia, the time of 1848. While comparing Sanskrit, Greek and Latin epics was commonplace at the time, Lamartine focuses more specifically on Sanskrit plays, whose first translations in the late 18th century had been met with delight in Europe. But it is its exemplary nature that Lamartine places most emphasis on, citing the 'happy ending' rule as an indication of congruence with transcendence, akin to modern Christian plays, and unlike Greco-Latin literature, in which tragedy symbolises human imperfection. In doing so, Lamartine demonstrates more than just the universality of a Revelation essentially corrupted in all religions, based on a pattern commonly seen in 19th century apologetics. In reality, Christian drama does not exist; it is Sanskrit drama that, embodying its sense of completion, reveals the failure of the former and, beyond that, the imperfect nature of all Western literature. In the history of literature offered in Cours familier, Indian literature thus comes first, because it does not distinguish between what is considered religion, philosophy or literature. It is a 'philosophy of reality, […] a philosophy that is both reason and religion, truth and consolation all at once.' Along with texts presented at length – Śakuntalā, the Bhagavadgītā –, Lamartine also shares the notion that reading Indian literature is a spiritual experience, citing two personal stories: his wonder at an 'Indian hymn', and the revelation of 'kindness towards all nature' as he read, while hunting, a section of the final book of the Mahābhārata, where the prince Yudhiṣṭhira refuses to enter paradise without his loyal dog.
Published in january 2023