Degeneration as an Absolute Metaphor in Nineteenth-Century France

Abstract

The objective of this article is to apply the historical-philosophical methodology proposed by Hans Blumenberg, the metaphorology, to trace the history of the dégénérescence metaphor in the French nineteenth century that had repercussions on the literature of the time. To this end, the article traces a set of socially relevant metaphors and a transversal metaphor with which language acquires meaning in historical, literary and philosophical texts. The article is divided into three parts. The first part studies the concept of hereditary degeneration as one of the main modes of historical and medical representation of the time. Since its beginning in France at the end of the eighteenth century with the publication of treatises and theses on diseases transmitted from one generation to another, degeneration has revealed a degenerative ideology of morality in nineteenth-century society. The second part documents the appearance of the term dégénérescence and describes its formation as a historical and medical concept in France between 1871 and 1893. The third part exemplifies the main metaphors described in the work of Émile Zola, Les Rougon-Macquart, to explain how the hereditary degeneration, in nineteenth-century thought, justified architectural reforms, racial discrimination and class antagonisms. In conclusion, the study of the operation of the absolute metaphor dégénérescence allows us to postulate that naturalism cannot be understood without the biological theories of the sick body and, by extension, of the social decline of the Empire, the monarchy and the nation.