Taste and Democracy in Nineteenth-Century French Literature and Thought

Abstract: This article argues that given contemporary concerns over taste, democracy, and populist politics, taste is now something worth arguing over in academic scholarship. Resisting Pierre Bourdieu’s systematic attack on aesthetics, the article draws on several writers and thinkers who situate taste at the center of political thought, such as Kant, Mme de Staël, Stendhal, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Arendt, and Rancière. Nineteenth-century French literary and philosophical works explored similar concerns related to the role of aesthetic taste in shaping political judgment. The essay summarizes the articles in the issue and draws connections between them.