Between the Abject and the Sublime: Excessive Bodies in Mercè Rodoreda's El Carrer de Les Camèlies and Mirall Trencat

Abstract

This article traces vestiges of Noucentista iconography in the construction of the female body in Merce Rodoreda's El carrer de les Camelies and Mirall trencat. It argues that an analysis of Noucentista representations of the female form in the plastic arts provides an invaluable insight into the political, social, and aesthetic principles that underpin the movement, thus ultimately informing the reading of Rodoreda's formulation of the female body of contextual as well as intertextual detail. Eugeni d'Ors's concept-novel La Ben Plantada featured a mythic female character of classical attributes and proportions. This literary figure had a sculptural quality that conformed to the concepts of form, volume, and structure applied by Noucentista plastic artists in their representations of the female nude. However, whereas Noucentista sculpture best expressed the ideology's investment in notions of measure, balance, and order, it also betrayed a concern with bodily limits and the problems of the body's containm...