I can help you for Saint-Just (which, at the same time, disqualifies me for helping you for Desmoulins -- since I know pratically nothing on him and am biased): I wrote a 12-page dissertation on Saint-Just last year for my university course on the French Revolution -- the only problem is that it's in French. -_-; I was planning to translate it and post it somewhere, but I didn't have time yet.... I could write for you a little summary to describe, but that would need to get down my list of "All The Things I Have To Do For University And Am Already Lacking Time For". >_____>
The first problem with Saint-Just is that, for people who are used to "simple" personalities, he seems "complex" but since I'm complex myself, I don't find him too complex. The best sources to understand him are, for his youth, his literary texts (and by this, I mean, reading Organt in a critical way, not in a hysterical, victorian-like OMG!NUN!RAPE!DONKEY!SEX!SO!AWFUL!AND!DEBAUCHED -- in all, Organt tells you about young!Saint-Just's cynicism (as in Ancient-inspired Diogenes cynicism)), for his early years into the Revolution, when he was too young to be elected, there are his many letters, which reflect how impatient to take action he is, for his Convention years, there are a few passages from his speeches and from the Institutions républicaines which give clues on his personality.
The things to be avoided are:
1) To think he was constantly extremist and "madder than Robespierre" -- the thing is that it's possible to interpret is personality as a lot more pragmatic, rational and calm than Robespierre, who was anxious bordering on nevrotic (and for reason's sake: it's not dramatic to be slightly nevrotic, as many historians since to believe it is -- come on, now, how many human beings are? and they are not living in the same circumstances at all!);
2) To think he was like the Ebil Eve who gave Maximilien!Adam the Ebil Apple of the Revolution and turned him into an Ebil man -- no, but you laugh here, but more than a half of the characterisations (especially the dantoniste ones) of Saint-Just present him as the one who's responsible for everything, and that if he hadn't been there, Robespierre wouldn't have gotten so "bad" (ex. the film La Révolution française: les années terribles -- for plain!evil!Lucifer-like!Saint-Just, there's A Place of Greater Safety, but you must know about this already).
3) The feminisation -- this is bloody getting on my nerves. "He was pretty like a girl." "He looked like a girl." "He was so pretty omg." Etc. Someday, I'll write an article about this. And will probably include it in my master degree. This is just far too irritating. And, on top of it, this constant feminisation of Saint-Just, following the classical reference to his "lyrical" and "admiring" letter to Robespierre just shows the latent homophoby of plenty of historians -- whether they are homosexuals or not is not the issue here, the problem is that historians pretend it (but never honestly write it) and use this to bash them, because they are OBVIOUSLY "abnormal" which explains why their socio-political ideas are also "abnormal".
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-11-15 03:42 am (UTC)and am biased): I wrote a 12-page dissertation on Saint-Just last year for my university course on the French Revolution -- the only problem is that it's in French. -_-; I was planning to translate it and post it somewhere, but I didn't have time yet.... I could write for you a little summary to describe, but that would need to get down my list of "All The Things I Have To Do For University And Am Already Lacking Time For". >_____>The first problem with Saint-Just is that, for people who are used to "simple" personalities, he seems "complex"
but since I'm complex myself, I don't find him too complex. The best sources to understand him are, for his youth, his literary texts (and by this, I mean, reading Organt in a critical way, not in a hysterical, victorian-like OMG!NUN!RAPE!DONKEY!SEX!SO!AWFUL!AND!DEBAUCHED -- in all, Organt tells you about young!Saint-Just's cynicism (as in Ancient-inspired Diogenes cynicism)), for his early years into the Revolution, when he was too young to be elected, there are his many letters, which reflect how impatient to take action he is, for his Convention years, there are a few passages from his speeches and from the Institutions républicaines which give clues on his personality.The things to be avoided are:
1) To think he was constantly extremist and "madder than Robespierre" -- the thing is that it's possible to interpret is personality as a lot more pragmatic, rational and calm than Robespierre, who was anxious bordering on nevrotic (and for reason's sake: it's not dramatic to be slightly nevrotic, as many historians since to believe it is -- come on, now, how many human beings are? and they are not living in the same circumstances at all!);
2) To think he was like the Ebil Eve who gave Maximilien!Adam the Ebil Apple of the Revolution and turned him into an Ebil man -- no, but you laugh here, but more than a half of the characterisations (especially the dantoniste ones) of Saint-Just present him as the one who's responsible for everything, and that if he hadn't been there, Robespierre wouldn't have gotten so "bad" (ex. the film La Révolution française: les années terribles -- for plain!evil!Lucifer-like!Saint-Just, there's A Place of Greater Safety, but you must know about this already).
3) The feminisation -- this is bloody getting on my nerves. "He was pretty like a girl." "He looked like a girl." "He was so pretty omg." Etc. Someday, I'll write an article about this. And will probably include it in my master degree. This is just far too irritating. And, on top of it, this constant feminisation of Saint-Just, following the classical reference to his "lyrical" and "admiring" letter to Robespierre just shows the latent homophoby of plenty of historians -- whether they are homosexuals or not is not the issue here, the problem is that historians pretend it (but never honestly write it) and use this to bash them, because they are OBVIOUSLY "abnormal" which explains why their socio-political ideas are also "abnormal".
Hm, yeah, so that's all I can think of for now.
P.S. What's a "NaNoWriMo" novel?