Uroš Petrović on Hippolyte Taine

Abstract

Despite the formal requirements of a doctoral thesis, Uroš Petrović’s dissertation Hippolyte Taine: Literary Historian of the Seventeenth Century [Ipolit Ten – književni istoričar XVII veka] (1907) reveals the astute mind of a young Serbian critic and writer, who unfortunately lost his life prematurely in the First World War.
In memory of his contribution to Serbian literary studies at the beginning of the 20th century, we would like to draw attention to his original insight into the lesser-known critical work of Taine. Petrović, who studied at the Sorbonne under the strong influence of Gustave Lanson’s new scientific method and the brand new discipline of literary history, maintained objectivity and scepticism in his unbiased analysis of Taine’s assumptions. By analysing his account of Taine’s essays on French classicism (especially Racine), we acknowledge Petrović’s own critical method.
Although he criticises Taine’s determinism (race, milieu and moment), his systematic search for causes, and his psychology, in our opinion, Petrović shows remarks that are not necessarily aligned with Lansonism. His arguments were rather well thought out objections of a young, attentive critic who was fully aware of the major drawbacks of positivism. Our main concern, however, was to show that Petrović, who knew Taine’s extensive work well, recognised Taine’s complexity, and his central role in shaping the trends in literary studies, despite the shortcomings of his method. Our aim was to highlight the main influences of the intellectual climate in France at the turn of the century. More importantly, Petrović’s objections speak to his deep knowledge of Taine’s overall method, considering its philosophical background and its evolution. The fact that Petrović’s remarks pay tribute to some of Taine’s finest intuitive choices and finest conclusions, advances our argument that Petrović, by not adhering to a predictable form of criticising Taine’s synthesis, partly heralds a major revision of Taine’s critical and historical legacy. This was to be undertaken in the second half of the last century.