THE FATE OF CULTURE: THE CRITICISM OF FREDERICK MELCHIOR GRIMM (1753-1772) (FRANCE)

Between 1753 and 1772, Frederick Melchior Grimm edited and was the chief contributor to the now famous Correspondance litteraire, philosophique, et critique. In this newsletter sent out privately from Paris in order to avoid the censor, Grimm reported on the intellectual and aesthetic trends of the day to a select group of subscribers, among them many crowned heads of northern Europe. Because of Grimm's close association with the philosophes Diderot and Voltaire and because of his richly detailed discussions of current cultural events, the Correspondance litteraire has become a major source of information about the French and European Enlightenment.;Given that Grimm's criticism has become an important medium for our understanding of the Enlightenment, it is surprising to find that few scholars have paid serious attention to the dynamics of Grimm's critical enterprise in the Correspondance litteraire and in the several articles he published in France. This thesis describes the evolution of his critical enterprise and the relation of his ideas on contemporary opera, historiography, and tragedy to that enterprise. Grimm's criticism had as a major theme the recommendation of a high level of expressivity in the arts and letters to serve as a necessary antidote to the "funeste lethargie" he felt threatened the very life of French culture. This chronic lethargy he found reflected in and, in turn, reinforced by the blandness of contemporary arts and letters. The responsibility for both the public's lethargy and the vitiating banality of the arts and letters Grimm attributed to the French government's "systeme . . . d'adoucir le caractere de nos peuples." Grimm's radical reconceptions of opera, historiography, and tragedy all aimed at heightening the expressive power of those arts and, thereby, their potential to reinvigorate the French national esprit. Recommending such aesthetic reforms, for Grimm, was a critical strategy that allowed him to discuss with his readers a need for political and cultural change.