Mlle de Chartres at the Jeweller's Shop: Knowledge and Commerce inLa Princesse de Clèves

Abstract

Paul Verlaine's Romances sans paroles (1874) can be described as a bisexual text in its autobiographical origins: most of the poems are inspired by, or depict, either the poet's heterosexual relationship with his wife or his homosexual relationship with poet Arthur Rimbaud. How is this bisexuality inscribed into the text? Is there such a thing as « une ecriture bisexuelle » which not only transcends the biographical and thematic, but also breaks away from traditional sexual binaries? A section in Cixous'La Jeune Nee, entitled « le masculin futur », provides one theoretical starting point. Grammatical forms-pronouns, nominalised verbal forms, gender-revealing adjectives-are some of the many linguistic features wich produce a blurring of gendered identity. Verlaine's bixesual writing reveals an erasure of the traditional masculine markers, both in grammatical forms, and in the way it privileges and valorizes the feminine, submitting the body to sensation and emotion.