Nerval et l’opéra-comique: le dossier des Monténégrins by Michel Brix, Jean-Claude Yon

Abstract

8/4 Reviews while Elizabeth Stephens maps the pathologizing of sexual excess' onto Foucault's discourse of themonstrous and itsnormalization. Rae Beth Gordon opens the final section with a deft and wide-ranging examina tion of the interplay of pleasure and pain infin-de-siecle aesthetic judgement. She traces the repercussions of widely espoused theories of psychophysics (whereby internal pleasure and pain are scientificallymeasured through bodily responses to works of art), and particularly underscores the deliberate provocation of painful (and also unconscious) sensations by artists such as Gustave Moreau. Carol Rifelj explores the painful quest forbeauty in early-century fashion, a quest whose goal seems contradicted in contemporary novels, where precisely when she is not a "fashion victim", woman's pain may be investedwith erotic power' (p. 249). Claire Moran closes the volume with a return to considerations of religious suffering, this time in French and Belgian painting, showing how the crucifix served as a motif both of the artist's suffering and of his joyous release from the confines of mimetic art. With an emphasis on literature from the early half of the century and theory and art from thefin de siecle, this volume is an engaging contribution to the discourse surrounding the shiftingground of representing, understanding, and using pleasure and pain innineteenth-century France. University of Lethbridge Beth Gerwin Nerval et Vopera-comique: ledossier desMontenegrins. ByMichel Brix and Jean Claude Yon. Namur: Presses universitaires de Namur. 2009. 277 pp. 38. ISBN 978-2-87037-608-9. Despite his inexplicable marginalization by contemporary criticism, Gerard de Nerval, incomparably lucid writer of visions, is of course canonized by the pub lication of his CEuvres completes in the Pleiade edition. These are, however, less completes' than theymight seem; notably, they do not include works on which Nerval collaborated with other authors, such as his writings for the theatre and opera. It is toMichel Brix, one of the Pleiade contributors and among themost eminent Nerval scholars of our day, that we owe a precious series of supple mentary publications. For this re-edition of Nerval's libretto Les Montenegrins, Brix has collaborated with Jean-Claude Yon, a specialist in the cultural history of nineteenth-century theatre and opera. Alongside ameticulously researched intro duction that situates the work in the troubled world of Parisian theatre around 1848, the volume includes the twomain versions of the opera (themanuscript of 1848, and theprinted version as performed in 1849), aswell as the original scenario written inNerval's own handwriting, probably in 1847. Despite his collaboration with the dramatist Edouard Alboise, Nerval's mark isunmistakably present inboth versions. Nerval himself had never travelled toMontenegro, taking his inspiration from Nodier's writings on the region as well as his story Tnes de las Sierras'. While the MLR, 105.3, 2.010 875 plot is set against the historical backdrop of the struggle for influence between Napoleonic and Russian forces inMontenegro, the opera ismost memorable for its echo ofNerval's own obsession with the transcendence of death and time. The Dantesque name of the heroine, Beatrice, suggests her role as guide to theworld beyond death. She disguises herself as the vampiric ghost ofHelene, who returns to theMaladetta castle on the anniversary of her death, but who, like theHelen of Faust, stands for the transcendence of time by beauty since her ghost takes the form of the dead beloved. Echoes ofNervaFs most famous poem traverse this central scene with itsapparition of the lost one 'Dans la nuit du tombeau' (p. 90). And that Beatrice's love for the young French officer should stem from an initialmovement of pity at the thought of his absent mother is no surprise to those familiar with his work. Here is no fin-de-siecle vampire, but a trulyNervalian vision inwhich a powerful and implicitlymaternal feminine figure ismomentarily glimpsed beyond the barrier of death. Christ Church, Oxford Jennifer Yee Flaubert's 'Tentation: Remapping Nineteenth-Century French Histories ofReligion and Science. By Mary Orr. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2008. xi+ 352 pp. ?50. ISBN 978-0-19-925858-1. How do we read Flaubert's monstrous, discordant, and disruptive Tentation de saint Antoine7. Of the first,sprawling 1849 version, readers who come to Flaubert through other...