Living Well with Pessimism in Nineteenth-Century France

This book traces the emergence of modern pessimism in nineteenth-centuryFrance and examines its aesthetic, epistemological, ethical, and politicalimplications. It explores how, since pessimism as a worldview is not empiricallyverifiable, writers on pessimism shift the discussion to verisimilitude, opening uprich territory for cross-fertilization between philosophy and literature. The booktraces debates on pessimism in the nineteenth century among French nonfictionwriters who either lauded its promotion of compassion or condemned it for beinga sick and unliveable attempt at renunciation. It then examines the way novelistsand poets take up and transform these questions by portraying characters inlived situations that serve as testing grounds for the merits or limitations ofpessimism. The debate on pessimism that emerged in the nineteenth century isstill very much with us, and this book offers an interhistorical argument forembracing pessimism as a way of living well in the world, aesthetically, ethically,and politically.