Gérard de Nerval: Prodigal Son of History

Nerval's sense of history differs from the historical perspective of his own generation. His nostalgia for values of the ancien régime, especially legitimacy and permanence, inform his static concept of history. History's forces were past forces pre-existing the individual and which shaped and ordered life. Only by linking oneself to an uninterrupted chain of historically identifiable circumstances repeated in the moment and possessing a continuity of repetitions in the archaeology of the temporal strata of history can the individual find an authentic legitimacy. Nerval's use of heraldry reveals that his history requires a fixed language. The Abbé de Bucquoy's identity is lost in the changing orthographic system and saved only by the stability of family arms. A semiology of Sylvie at two moments of her life demonstrates the possibility of structural permanence in history amid radical social change. (RCC)