SOURCE: '"Poète véritable'," "Personal Philosophy," and "The Lamartinian Aesthetic," in Lamartine: A Revaluation, University of Hull Press, 1969, pp. 7-15, pp. 16-25, pp. 30-37.

In this excerpt, Ireson examines the relationship between Lamartine's personal beliefs and his poetry.

We have in our time a complex image of Lamartine as he emerges judged from many stand-points. His contemporaries have seen him through various lenses. Traditionalists have reproved what might have appeared to be dangerous innovations or lapses. Journalists have fastened on the abundant material of his life in all its forms, domestic, sentimental, political, seignorial. Scholars have performed the necessary labeur de bénédictin, with growing precision and confidence.

Out of this tangle of concentrated attention a number of clear threads may be drawn. Lamartine has never left his public indifferent, though the nature of the response he arouses varies considerably from period to period. We...