| Summary: | The genealogical paradigm was renewed in French literary criticism in the XIXth Century. The problem it encounters is the following: on the one hand, to reduce the specificity of literary and artistic genius within natural or historical laws; on the other hand, being too fascinated by the uniqueness of genius, so that any historical explanation of the latter could be attempted. Literary genealogy in France is aimed at escaping the antithesis between reductionist naturalism and ahistorical romanticism. First approached through both a biographical and naturalistic method by Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve during the first half of the century, it turns into a more physiological and Darwinian perspective through Hippolyte Taine’s historiography. Seen from Nietzsche’s European point of view, this way of proceeding lacks self-examination, because every good genealogy must become aware of the values it conveys.
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