Negative Equity? The Representation of Prostitution and the Prostitution of Representation in Balzac

Abstract

This paper asks two questions. Firstly, why, as a number of critics have recently claimed, do the prostitute and prostitution structure relationships in Balzac? Secondly, in what ways, and with what effect, do the prostitute and prostitution influence and inflect Balzac's relationship to art? An examination of appropriate references shows that the centrality of the prostitute derives from her (or occasionally his) ability to combine nature and nurture in a self-conscious performance which has the same moral and epistemological ambiguity as art.