The Entomological Utopia of Charles Nodier

Charles Nodier (1780–1844) was one of those writers fascinated by the world of insects. He not only dedicated his fiction to them but was also a professional entomologist. However, the most interesting aspect of “Nodier and Insects” is not the writer’s contribution to entomology or the vivid and extremely expressive descriptions of insects and their “hunts,” but the philosophical interpretation Nodier gave in several of his articles and stories about the world of insects, which he considered a true civilization. In his article “On the Palingenesis of Humanity and on the Resurrection,” Nodier put forward a paradoxical and even shocking concept, according to which the process of creation described in the biblical book of Genesis is not complete, and that sooner or later another, higher being, which Nodier called “an understanding being,” must replace current man. Nodier, who generally held an extremely pessimistic view of modern civilization, attempted in this case to see some positive perspective on the fate of humanity. But he quickly abandoned such optimism and returned to his previous view of insect civilization as more intelligent than humankind. This skeptical view of humanity is expounded in its extreme form in his “primitive apologist,” (author’s definition of the genre) “Man and the Ant.” Disillusioned with the prospect of creating the “understanding being” discussed in his article “On Palingenesis,” Nodier predicts humanity’s defeat at the hands of a higher being — the termite ant. Nodier’s entomological utopia, so joyful and cheerful in the story of irreproachable Grandison, the insect, takes on a completely different f lavor in his “primitive apologist” about the ant Termes, more in keeping with Nodier’s pessimistic worldview of the 1830s.