ABSTRACT
The Swiss critic, Albert Beguin and the ex-patriot Belgian, Georges Poulet were both members of the highly distinctive and influential Geneva school of criticism, whose founder was Marcel Raymond. Beguin's works of criticism indeed form an enterprise in which his own inner self is deeply involved. As Poulet wrote of him: 'Beguin in no way presents himself as an objective critic. A convert to Catholicism, Beguin, as can be sensed from a reading of his essay on Balzac, was deeply influenced in his criticism by his religious convictions. Beguin was first and foremost the author of a remarkable study of the influence of German Romanticism on French literature. Beguin hoped that it would be the forerunner of a more substantial work on Balzac. In the final analysis, what causes this to be a reading to be reckoned with is precisely its emphasis on the totality and unity of the Balzacian vision.
