and thereafter had to play roles which he derived from his reading of the
ancient classics; thus was born the ultimately fatal idea of making himself
an Emperor. But the Tolstoys would reply that the classical sensibility
implies the recognition that events make men, not vice versa and that
Napoleon tried to achieve by willpower what can only be achieved by
technology. There is accordingly no solution to the introvert/extrovert or
Classical/Romantic antinomy in Bonaparte's case.
But Napoleon's role in myth can perhaps be established by a Jungian
fable, emphasizing the mystical powers of quaternity. Born on one island
(Corsica), he was exiled to a second (Elba) and died on a third (St
Helena). Just as Jung insists the shadow side of the Trinity must be
completed by a fourth to achieve integration, so may we see a fourth
island, England, as Napoleon's nemesis and (from his point of view)
bringing about a horrific closure. When he spoke scornfully of a 'nation of
shopkeepers', Napoleon was really expressing his contempt for all who
live by the laws of reality and conduct politics by the art of the possible.
The traditional hero, like Hercules, harrows Hell, as Napoleon did in
Russia in 1812. And Prometheus himself, who gave Man fire, was
chained forever to a rock, where a vulture gnawed unceasingly at his
entrails. Chained to a rock on St Helena, Napoleon became the sacrificial
victim who in French cultural mythology more than any other man
represents the nation and Ia gloire.
marcin
(Marcin)
#1