Histoire De Ma Research Articles

«Non-conforming Pleasures»: Representations of Homosexuality in Casanova’s Histoire de Ma Vie

Giacomo Casanova’s Histoire de Ma Vie offers an interesting perspective for exploring same-sex eroticism in the eighteenth century. Despite its reputation as a classic focused on heterosexual adventures, the Memoirs reveal references to sodomy and eroticism between same-sex individuals. This article aims to identify and place in the historical context traces of this theme within the literary source. It documents biases and captures shifts in sensibilities through Casanova’s firsthand account, delving into male homoeroticism, lesbian encounters, and the evolution of Casanova’s attitude towards male sodomy at a time when terms like «homosexuality» had yet to be defined. The challenge of anachronism is addressed by acknowledging that the absence of a specific terminology in earlier periods does not negate the existence of same-sex love and intimacy. Examining the representations of same-sex eroticism in Casanova’s Histoire provides insights into the historical contextualization of male subjectivity, the understanding of emotions, and the physiological-moral discourse regarding the body-mind connection, during a pivotal turning point in the history of emotions and sexuality.

Painting in Casanova’s Paris

Although Casanova’s memoirs appear to tell the story of his erotic adventures, this article argues that Part 3 Chapter 13 of the Histoire de ma vie is organized around an interrogation of esthetics. Specifically, in the last chapter recounting his first stay in Paris, Casanova evokes different paintings and painters to develop his own ideas on representation. In explaining his relationship to portraits of Louise O’Murphy (a mistress of Louis XV) and the duchesse de Chartres as well as to the painters Sanson and Francesco Casanova (a brother of the author), the writer questions the painter’s goal of producing a realistic representation. Valuing paintings not only for their truth but also for their beauty, Casanova at the same time redefines the aims of writing, offering the reader a way to appreciate his autobiography less as an accurate relation of his life but as an artistic creation.

L’‘Histoire de ma littérature’ de Mme d’Arconville (1720‐1805): Ecriture de soi et généalogie d’une personnalité intellectuelle

AbstractMme d’Arconville stands out amongst eighteenth‐century women of letters because she combined the practice of literature with the more unexpected study of science. When at the end of a very long life she returns to what she calls the ‘story of her head’, the anecdotes she recounts constitute a genealogy of her thought stemming from her childhood’s encyclopaedic curiosity. This essay examines this intellectual narrative through two unpublished autobiographical manuscripts written around 1803: the ‘Histoire de ma littérature’ and ‘Mes souvenirs’. These are less concerned with rooting identity in an intimate sense of self than with investigating the genealogy of what would later be called an intellectual personality. Her autobiographical writing thus invites us to rediscover a world both within and outside the self and makes it not only possible to retrace the intellectual history of a woman, but also to apprehend experiences from the period’s vast networks of sociability.

Stories at War: Images of Algerian Women From Colonial Accounts to the Life Story of Fadhma Amrouche

This article aims to discuss and analyse a wide array of stories produced in nineteenth century French Algeria and told by different actors about native Algerian women. While some of these stories were written as true-to-life war testimonies about Algerian women told from multifarious angles and perspectives, others were produced in the form of phantasmagorical image-stories about native women as told by Orientalist artists and colonialist photographers. Moving away from these colonial male narratives, the article discusses in juxtaposition the story of the women of Algeria as told by French feminist Hubertine Auclert in her book Les Femmes arabes en Algérie, and a counter story to hers written by Fadhma Aït Mansour Amrouche, as the story of her life, Histoire de ma vie. Bringing these two contrasting sets of stories into discussion and scrutiny will enable us to evaluate the extent to which native women were central to the French conquest and to the French feminists’ agenda of ‘saving them’ from their barbaric people and ways of life. The article aims to discuss the intricacies of such missions and assess the extent to which native Algerian women were saved by their colonisers.

A Poetics of Confusion: Casanova’s Histoire de ma vie as Bildungsroman

Casanova warns readers in the preface of the Histoire de ma vie: “I do not write a novel or the story of an illustrious person.” Casanova refuses to character ize the written story of his life as novel or memoir, and he borrows from the poetics of these two genres, which are situated at opposite ends of the social spectrum. Following the ups and downs of its author’s chequered career, the Histoire de ma vie embodies a poetics of confusion and merges competing literary models. One of these models is the Bildungsroman or “roman de formation” illustrated in ancien régime France by such works as Prévost’s Manon Lescaut (1731), Marivaux’s Le Paysan parvenu (1734), and Voltaire’s L’Ingénu (1767). Studying Casanova’s account of his two Parisian sojourns of 1750–52 and 1757–59, which he describes as “mes années d’apprentissage,” this article investigates the author’s borrowing and eventual undermining of Bildungsroman poetics.

Chopin and George Sand: An International Affair

Chopin and George Sand: An International Affair James Gibbons Huneker (bio) Chopin was never a hearty partisan of the Romantic movement. Its extravagance, misplaced enthusiasm, turbulence, attacks on church, state and tradition disturbed the finical Pole while noise, réclame and boisterousness chilled and repulsed him . . . he objected to smashing idols and refused to wade in gutters to reach his ideal. He was not a fighter, yet as one reviews the past half century it is his still small voice that has emerged from the din, the golden voice of a poet and not the roar of the artistic demagogues of his day. . . . Nor do I propose to discuss the details of the affair which has been dwelt upon ad nauseam by every twanger of the romantic string. The idealists will always see a union of souls, the realists—and there were plenty of them in Paris taking notes from 1837 to 1847—view the alliance as a matter for gossip. The truth lies midway. Chopin, a neurotic being, met the polyandrous Sand, a trampler on all the social and ethical conventions, albeit a woman of great gifts; repelled at first he gave way before the ardent passion she manifested towards him. She was his elder, so could veil the situation with the maternal mask, and she was the stronger intellect, more celebrated—Chopin was but a pianist in the eyes of the many—and so won by her magnetism the man she desired. . . . Paris, artistic Paris, was full of such situations. . . . [Chopin] may be fairly called a moralist. Carefully reared in the Roman Catholic religion, he died confessing that faith. With the exception of the Sand episode, his life was not an irregular one. He abhorred the vulgar and tried to conceal this infatuation from his parents. . . . Chopin met Sand at a musical matinée in 1837. . . . Sand was antipathetic to Chopin but her technique for overcoming masculine coyness was as remarkable in its particular fashion as Chopin’s proficiency at the keyboard. They were soon seen together, and everywhere. She was not musical, not a trained musician, but her appreciation for all art forms was highly sympathetic. Not a beautiful woman, being swarthy and rather heavy-set in figure, this is what she was, as seen by Édouard Grenier:— She was short and stout, but her face attracted all my attention, the eyes especially. They were wonderful eyes, a little too close together, it may be, large, with full eyelids, and black, very black, but by no means lustrous; they reminded me of unpolished marble, or rather of velvet, and this gave a [End Page 197] strange, dull, even cold expression to her countenance. Her fine eyebrows and these great placid eyes gave her an air of strength and dignity which was not borne out by the lower part of her face. Her nose was rather thick and not over shapely. Her mouth was also rather coarse and her chin small. She spoke with great simplicity, and her manners were very quiet. But she attracted with imperious power all that she met. Liszt felt this attraction at one time—and it is whispered that Chopin was jealous of him. Pouf! the woman who could conquer Franz Liszt in his youth must have been a sorceress. . . . In 1838, Sand’s boy Maurice being ill, she proposed a visit to Majorca. Chopin went with the party in November and full accounts of the Mediterranean trip, Chopin’s illness, the bad weather, discomforts and all the rest may be found in the “Histoire de Ma Vie” by Sand. It was a time of torment. “Chopin is a detestable invalid,” said Sand, and so they returned to Nohant1 in June 1839. They saw Genoa for a few days in May, but that is as far as Chopin ever penetrated into the promised land—Italy, at one time a passion with him. Sand enjoyed the subtle and truly feminine pleasure of again entering the city which six years before she had visited in company with another man, the former lover of Rachel.2 Chopin’s health in 1839 was a source of alarm to himself and his friends. He had...

Casanova: la mémoire du désir par Cyril Francès

of the book, this chapter provides an appropriate coda to an essay that endeavors to challenge the status quo and redefine the Mediterranean ethos. To be sure, the book does not pretend to be exhaustive in its reach. It does not, for instance, address some key intercultural relations, such as those experienced by Jews in the Mediterranean. In its effort to question the notions of limits and frontiers, one may also wish it had invoked thinkers like Étienne Balibar. But, Esposito’s book remains an engaging piece of scholarship of most urgent relevance. Princeton University André Benhaïm Francès, Cyril. Casanova: la mémoire du désir. Paris: Garnier, 2014. ISBN 978-28124 -2139-6. Pp. 681. 59 a. Casanova represents one of the most intriguing figures of the eighteenth century. His reputation as the archetypal seducer has endured in numerous literary, artistic, and popular forms, as recently evidenced by Albert Serra’s film Story of My Death. The macabre, ironic title alludes to Casanova’s posthumously published memoir, Story of My Life. Francès, too, has of late issued a lengthy interpretation of Casanova’s Histoire de ma vie, which he based on his doctoral dissertation. The resulting work comes across as an obtuse text of dry literary analysis which purports to view the infamous lover’s work as a reflection of such Enlightenment concerns as sensibility, self, imagination , and consciousness.Aside from the impenetrable commentary,the author’s premise does not seem to present original insights on the Casanova story. Nonetheless, there are lucid and appealing sections that figure as introductions in the customary tripartite argumentation of an academic thesis. Francès is at his best as a writer and scholar when he describes rather than interprets Casanova’s text. This is especially evident if the reader has some degree of familiarity with this memoir. The first part contemplates the believability of the work as manifested in Francès’s choice of title: “Une mémoire fabuleuse” (31). It is questionable whether a man was physically capable of so many sexual adventures and lived a life filled with so many implausible coincidences. In fact, the New York Times critic of the above film refers to the memoir as “extravagant, improbable.”In this regard, Francès makes the distinction between memoir and autobiography , the former emphasizing personal impression over straightforward account expressed by the latter. He incorporates the aspect of temporality into this work of sensual memory with the story of the lover Thérèse Imer who appears in three different European capitals, as three distinct personages during three stages of Casanova’s life. This technique of melding time periods allows Casanova and the reader the illusion of re-experiencing reminiscent pleasures in the present moment. Francès introduces the second part with the description of Casanova’s earliest memory, which is again, fabuleux, that is, mythical, magical, and imaginative. He describes the surreal scene of a child suffering from nosebleeds taken to a witch for treatment, after which he recalls 220 FRENCH REVIEW 89.4 Reviews 221 the appearance of a fairy-like apparition. The moment marks the conscious realization of his existence, his “moi casanovien” (337). Compared with Rousseau’s Confessions, Casanova’s Histoire de ma vie does not rely solely on the recollection of specific events and concurrent feelings to retell his story. The Venetian’s memoir, which reads like a novel, defies the autobiographical convention of his century by incorporating the “merveilleux” (209), marrying memory with imagination. Casanova’s “je” (328) constitutes a metaphorical rather than literal representation of self. Francès opens the third and final section with a recounting of Casanova’s incredible escape from the Leads prison. This episode defined his persona, granting him the freedom to become an actor on life’s stage and to eventually compose his own theatrical memoir, an “autobiographie rococo” (405) of sensuality. Independent Scholar Ivy Dyckman Francis, Cécilia W., et Robert Viau, éd. Trajectoires et dérives de la littérature-monde: poétiques de la relation et du divers dans les espaces francophones. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2013. ISBN 978-90-420-3685-1. Pp. 607. $133. Les littératures d’expression française...

Mediterranean Narrative: Beyond France and the Maghreb by Claudia Esposito

Reviews 219 Benda in the first half of the century through the evolution of Sartre after the war, perhaps influenced by his reading of the journals of André Gide. A study of the role played by Jean Paulhan in the postwar period precedes chapters on Georges Perec, Michel Foucault, and Pierre Guyotat, whose thought shapes the second half of the century. The collection is lucidly presented in a preface by Hamel, who, as announced by his title, sets various theories of literary engagement in the broader context of twentieth-century cultural history. Dartmouth College Mary Jean Green Esposito,Claudia. Mediterranean Narrative: Beyond France and the Maghreb.Lanham: Lexington, 2014. ISBN 978-0-7391-6821-9. Pp. 183. $80. This thought-provoking essay belongs to a growing but still under-represented trend within (and on the margins of) postcolonial studies.With persuasive efficiency, Esposito elaborates her reflections through a tripartite critical stance. One of those dimensions asks to reassess the concept of postcoloniality by using “a transnational rather than dichotomous interpretive frame [...] where France is the dominant point of reference”(xii).A second aspect of her approach defines the Mediterranean beyond center-periphery interpretive practices as“a space of contestation and infinite translation ,” beyond a facile universalism, as Adbelkébir Khatibi puts it. The third element of Esposito’s reflection represents a tribute to literature. Borrowing from Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts, the author considers the Mediterranean as a “smooth space,” i.e., “open to intensities and affects,” as opposed to striated spaces that both “confine and restrict”(xx).As a smooth space, free of the tyrannies of identitarianism and historical determinism, the Mediterranean shares qualities with literature, which, inasmuch as it partakes both in subjectivity and universalism, stands as a privileged medium for apprehending the world. Esposito’s case for literature translates into engaging closereadings that she articulates elegantly with a pertinent theoretical apparatus. The book is structured in three parts, each composed of two chapters. The first part,“Humanism and History,” proposes a chapter on Camus’s “Humanism of the Sun,” which aptly recalls the writer’s concern for measure by replacing him between Nature and Politics, and one on Amin Maalouf’s and Fawzi Mellah’s “Alternative Histories.” The second part expands “Beyond the Binary” by exploring gender issues in the works of Nina Bouraoui, and by delving into Tahar Ben Jelloun’s cosmopolitanism through his “Neapolitan Baroque.”Finally,“Crossing the Strait and Moving the Center”completes Esposito’s move toward unlocking the discourse on the Mediterranean in a doubly daring finale. After looking at questions of migrations in Ben Jelloun and the toooverlooked Moroccan writer Mahi Binebine, the author finishes with a brilliant chapter on Francophone North African writers who live in Italy and write in Italian: Abdelmalek Smari, Mohsen Melliti, and Amara Lakhous. Arguably the most original of the book, this chapter provides an appropriate coda to an essay that endeavors to challenge the status quo and redefine the Mediterranean ethos. To be sure, the book does not pretend to be exhaustive in its reach. It does not, for instance, address some key intercultural relations, such as those experienced by Jews in the Mediterranean. In its effort to question the notions of limits and frontiers, one may also wish it had invoked thinkers like Étienne Balibar. But, Esposito’s book remains an engaging piece of scholarship of most urgent relevance. Princeton University André Benhaïm Francès, Cyril. Casanova: la mémoire du désir. Paris: Garnier, 2014. ISBN 978-28124 -2139-6. Pp. 681. 59 a. Casanova represents one of the most intriguing figures of the eighteenth century. His reputation as the archetypal seducer has endured in numerous literary, artistic, and popular forms, as recently evidenced by Albert Serra’s film Story of My Death. The macabre, ironic title alludes to Casanova’s posthumously published memoir, Story of My Life. Francès, too, has of late issued a lengthy interpretation of Casanova’s Histoire de ma vie, which he based on his doctoral dissertation. The resulting work comes across as an obtuse text of dry literary analysis which purports to view the infamous lover’s work as a reflection of such Enlightenment concerns as sensibility...

Giacomo Casanova: l’amore, la storia e la bella compagnia a Breslavia

GIACOMO CASANOVA: LOVE, HISTORY AND THE GOOD COMPANY IN WROCŁAW The article investigates an episode from Giacomo Casanova’s life concerning his stay in Wrocław, which was described in his biography entitled Histoire de ma vie. The analysis takes into consideration the structure of the whole biography. The main purpose of this article is to find in this work the most characteristic features of Casanova’s writing, as well as information on this period, its main representatives and the historical background of Wrocław of that time. Casanova, leaving Poland after a duel with Franciszek Ksawery Branicki, decides to go to Dresden, where his family lives, spending three days in Wrocław. In this short time Casanova makes the acquaintance of Abbot Bastiani, a very interesting person. At the same time, Casanova meets a young girl and once more begins to believe in love. The part of his biography concerning Wrocław provides an opportunity to analyse psychological aspects of these two people.

George Sand et la vie littéraire dans les premières années du Second Empire by Mariette Delamaire

Reviews 213 some oversimplification. His conceit, for instance, that cinema and video might better be able than the theater to represent the world as it actually is but that theater is unique in its ability to produce new esthetic paradigms, “soumettre à l’expérimentation collective [...] des univers de valeurs mutants” (185) seems a stretch, unnecessarily reductive, maybe even misrepresentative. California Polytechnic State University Brian G. Kennelly Delamaire, Mariette. George Sand et la vie littéraire dans les premières années du Second Empire. Paris: Champion, 2012. ISBN 978-2-7453-2042-1. Pp. 554. 125 a. George Sand is widely recognized today as not only a remarkable individual, but also as a major writer, thanks in part to the publication of her Correspondance, together with the proliferation of scholarship surrounding the bicentennial of her birth in 2004. Indeed, the last forty years have worked wonders in opening access to her lesser-known writings, in paying homage to her feminism and political engagement, and in debunking old stereotypes of the cigar-smoking cross-dresser lacking in literary talent. However, this renewed interest applies almost exclusively to her work prior to the Revolution of 1848. Her Second Empire novels, with the exception of Les maîtres sonneurs (1853), are still considered inferior to those published during the July Monarchy, while her biography is seen as regretfully missing the passion, brilliant liaisons, and commitment to major political events of earlier times. For Delamaire, this understanding of Sand as tied only to the Romantic movement has caused us to overlook her later contributions as a playwright and theoretician of the novel, to ignore her as an active participant in the literary and political debates of the Second Empire and, most regretfully perhaps, to neglect her contributions as a vital witness to the tumultuous transition from Romanticism to Realism. Hence, by examining Sand’s life and writings during the years 1848–57, Delamaire seeks to reevaluate this unjustly neglected period, thereby restoring her rightful place in literary history. Part 1 studies Sand’s correspondence during the years 1848–51, offering insights into the increasingly difficult working conditions caused by upheavals in the publishing world. Her pages on censorship, agents, contracts, translations, writer’s rights, and the precarious quest for financial security all offer a unique understanding of Sand as a skilled businesswoman at the center of important changes in the material existence of writers and in the commerce of books. Part 2 breaks new ground in analyzing Sand’s little-known success as playwright and dramatist. Whether treating her staged adaptations of her novels or of Shakespeare, her intense involvement with productions, her respect for actors, her love of improvisation, her admiration for Molière, or her adroit use of the stage in Nohant as a kind of theater laboratory, Delamaire paints a fascinating picture of an established novelist who boldly embarked on a whole new career at age fortyeight . Part 3 seeks to articulate a kind of “art poétique de George Sand” (285) by exploring the place of literature in her everyday life.A picture emerges of a writer who never abandoned her idealism. Of particular interest are her friendships with Dumas fils and Champfleury, her appreciation for her American contemporaries Cooper and Beecher-Stowe, and her epistolary exchanges with fans. It is high time we discover this amazingly prolific period that saw the completion of Histoire de ma vie and produced eight novels, fifteen plays, numerous articles, and a thirty-volume Correspondance. Delamaire’s ambitious and important book thus opens new vistas while filling a large void in Sand scholarship. University of New Orleans Juliana Starr Dénier, Renée. Count Stendhal: Henri Beyle et l’Angleterre. Paris: Philippe Rey, 2012. ISBN 978-2-84876-200-5. Pp. 205. 17 a. This slim volume explores the role, dimensions, and influence of British culture in Stendhal’s life and writing.Overshadowed by his enduring passion for Italy,Stendhal’s interactions with England, its society, its politics, and especially its literature have remained largely unexamined. And yet, Stendhal lived in an age of Anglomania, read British authors with intense devotion, and on three occasions spent between one and three months in England (1817...

Les images de soi chez Rousseau: l’autobiographie comme politique by Morihiko Koshi

in chronological order with Lafayette’s La Princesse de Clèves (1678). Jensen elucidates previously unanswered questions in this chapter. One of the main questions is how the Princesse breaks away from maternal possession and how she successfully creates her own identity after her mother’s death. In chapter 2, the author examines Madame de Sévigné’s desire to be an individual and to be recognized as a writer (140). Jensen shows how much Madame de Sévigné needed her daughter to validate and recognize her mother’s talent in her letters. However, on her side, Sévigné does not recognize her daughter’s desires, but imagines a “fantasy daughter” (176) that does not exist in real life. In chapter 3, Jensen analyzes Vigée-Lebrun’s Souvenirs, in which the author uses her daughter to represent herself as“ideally feminine” (201), a loving and tender mother.Vigée-Lebrun also invents a“fantasy daughter,”representing her as her“alterego ”, her “self-reflective object” (214). Chapter 4 analyses the relationship between George Sand’s two ‘mothers’ who raised her: her biological mother and her grandmother on her paternal side. Jensen starts her analysis by questioning why there is a discrepancy between the way Sand was viewed and what she wrote in Histoire de ma vie. Jensen concludes that Sand’s problematic relationship with her mothers is due to a lack of recognition as an independent subject (265). The last chapter analyses Break of Day, Colette’s fictional autobiography where Sido (the writer’s mother) is depicted very positively. However Jensen asks why Colette wrote about her mother after her death.She finds the answer in the preface when Colette states that her mother“imposed” herself on her (329)—most likely,as Jensen argues,because there were some unresolved issues or feelings between them.With a clear, well-supported, and thought-provoking study, Jensen has made a valuable contribution to the field of feminist literary criticism and has proved that there are no ‘easy possessions.’ California State University, San Marcos Véronique Anover Koshi, Morihiko. Les images de soi chez Rousseau: l’autobiographie comme politique. Paris: Garnier, 2011. ISBN 978-2-8124-0329-3. Pp. 331. 39 a. It is notably characteristic of almost all Rousseau’s work—as opposed, say, to standard philosophical discourse—that the narrator frequently refers to himself in the text. Koshi’s objective is not to get at the ‘real’ Jean-Jacques but to analyze the character or image of that first-person voice as exemplified in a certain number of works, in particular those he deems particularly polemical (but then virtually all of Rousseau’s writings are in one way or other contestatory or combative) and/or that take the form of discourses,letters,or autobiography.Koshi refers to this persona throughout as the author’s ethos, a term I find distracting even if it can be etymologically justified (22). Since he is concerned with how the “I” functions pragmatically (one might say ‘interactively’), he takes into account the ways in which the reader’s role as well is manipulated, and evidence of the manner in which the public sphere (both 222 FRENCH REVIEW 87.4 Reviews 223 virtual and factual) reacts. The analysis is made more complex by the fact that it focuses not on the self-image as abstracted from the argumentation, but rather on how it functions as part of the argumentation, in other words in the context of overall rhetorical strategy.The discours savant which Rousseau favors early on has,for example, very different rules from other genres that can be pressed into polemical service. A number of the formal letters are examined, particularly that addressed to Christophe de Beaumont and those to his fellow Genevans in response to Tronchin’s Lettres de la campagne. The texts that best lend themselves to this exercise are of course those that contain plenty of first- and second-person pronouns and verbs, yet the third person must not be overlooked (particularly in the form of on, but also le lecteur or even le public). Koshi spends relatively little time on dialogues, though Rousseau juge de JeanJacques is adduced for its theory of how...

The Heretical Dream of Casanova

Casanova, as he himself admits in his undisciplined memoirs, fully committed his life to a disorganized and non-systematic cultivation of pleasure. In such lack of stability, which affects the identity as well as the actions of the narrator, the energy of desire is revealed in its most vital and powerful forms: a desire for recognition, glory and literary immortality, which is a desire for the Other; a desire for transcendence, but also for new secular horizons, which is a desire for the Elsewhere; a desire for the lover’s words, which is the amorous desire that recomposes the bodies fragmented and made into pieces by sexual desire. Nevertheless a deliberate libertine project – the wide-ranging exploration of natural appetites – seems to traverse the whole Histoire de ma vie, and underlie this narrative codification of sexual desire. As Leonardo Sciascia pointed out, Casanova’s quest for absolute liberty culminates in the celebration of the most extreme action of vitalism – incest. While the incestuous intrigue of the memoirs are famous, less known is the representation of incest Casanova gives in the Jcosameron. In this utopian novel, through the story of a young brother and his sister, initiated to the elevated dimension of consanguineous love by the inhabitants of the centre of the earth, the writer thus finds a possibility to speak publicly about something prohibited, unutterable.

Dulaurens et son æuvre by Michèle Bokobza-Kahan

Literary, History and Criticism edited by Marion Geiger BERNARD, CLAUDIE, CHANTAL MASSOL, et JEAN-MARIE ROULIN, éd. Adelphiques: sœurs et frères dans la littérature du XIXe siècle. Paris: Kimé, 2010. ISBN 978-2-84174527 -2. Pp. 397. 31 a. Adelphiques combines nineteen papers presented at two conferences that explore representations of fraternal and/or sororal relations in works of literature from Stendhal to Proust. It is fair to ask whether this broad topic, which brought together diverse scholars and subjects at the conferences, translates well into book form: does the reader gain a coherent understanding about sibling relations, either as a social or literary phenomenon, from the early nineteenth through the early twentieth century? Linking these wide-ranging essays, according to the editors ’ introduction, is the general premise that something fundamental changed in the relationship between siblings (real or figurative) as a result of the French Revolution: with the overthrow of patriarchal Ancien Régime authorities, fraternité became a new way to think about family, politics, and society. This topic is treated in depth elsewhere: Lynn Hunt’s The Family Romance of the French Revolution (FR 66.5); Claudie Bernard’s Penser la famille au XIXe siècle (FR 84.2). In Adelphiques, the premise is mostly taken for granted, as each essayist explores themes of sibling relationships in the work or life of authors such as Balzac, Sand, DesbordesValmore , Nerval, and Zola. There are essays well worth reading: Xavier Bourdonnet ’s skillfully analyzes Balzac’s Illusions perdues through the dynamic between Lucien and Ève; Claudie Bernard elegantly compares fictional and actual brotherly partnerships in her reading of Les frères Zemganno, written by Edmond Goncourt after the death of Jules; Damien Zanone reminds readers of George Sand’s halfforgotten half-siblings and their role in the carefully constructed narrative, Histoire de ma vie. Jean-Marie Roulin brings to light interesting parallels between Musset and Sand in their fictional treatment of the cultural phenomenon of sœurs et frères de lait—an issue that resonates with some of the other essays (Julia Pryzbos on parenté de lait; Gisèle Séginger on Musset; Zanone on Sand). Indeed, numerous contributors address a common author or similar themes (Christine Planté and Evelyne Ender both highlight the absence or marginalization of sisters in republican fraternité), though without referring to one another. One would like to see more coordination or cross-citation among the essays, as Nicholas White’s piece does in fact do. Absent intra-textual references or synthesis, Adelphiques remains a collection of isolated insights; readers may find it more useful to choose essays that coincide with their own interests rather than read the volume coverto -cover. Widener University (PA) Kate M. Bonin BOKOBZA-KAHAN, MICHÈLE. Dulaurens et son œuvre. Paris: Champion, 2010. ISBN 978-2-7453-1949-4. Pp. 250. 50 a. Bokobza-Kahan presents an analysis of the writings of a defrocked monk who was on the fringes of the Enlightenment. Because of his subversive anticlericalism, Reviews 175 he spent his last years in a German prison. By this loss of his personal freedom, he made the ultimate sacrifice in the cause of intellectual freedom. He was looked upon by his contemporaries as a marginal writer, a “philosophe gueux,” and he made of this position as a social and intellectual outcast the central facet of his selfimage , portraying himself as an outsider, not only to the religious and political establishment but even to the philosophes. As such, he came to criticize any form of authoritarianism imposed on the human spirit, any pretense to the attainment of absolute truth. He satirized the arrogance of Rousseau and other philosophes as much as the tyranny of the monarchy and the obscurantism of the church. He was also self-critical, using devices in his writings to undercut his own authorial stature and the validity of the ideas he was presenting. He created a carnivalesque atmosphere like that in Rabelais, as described by Bakhtin, where the world is turned upside down and the reader is continually made aware of the complexities and ambiguities of human life. Henri-Joseph Dulaurens (1719–93) was the author of narrative poems and prose...

George Sand: The Writer as Reader in Histoire de ma vie

George Sand: The Writer as Reader in Histoire de ma vie

Casanova and the Italian Taste

Casanova's role can be characterized apart from that of a well known womanizer, as that of a historiographer of queer scandals during his time. He was the person who outed Winckelmann and spread the stories about Chevalier D’Eon, Albergoni or the Prince of Francavilla. He also visited the Italian coffeehouse in London and made Lorenzo da Ponte aware of it. Casanova’s education regarding gay idols such as Bathyllos, Ganymed and Giton is both comprehensive and amazing. He joined the freemasons at the age of 25 and had the great ability of introspection into other people’s psyche, especially into that of social outcasts. In addition to the episodes included in Casanova’s autobiography “Histoire de ma vie”, papers were discovered after his death containing notes for chapters or incidents omitted from the publication but whose titles indicate that could have enriched our knowledge about queer life in the eighteenth century

Giacomo Casanova: Three Episodes from His Life as a Charlatan

This paper will analyse three major episodes of Casanova's Histoire de ma vie during which Casanova comes to grips with practices of charlatanism or magic, either as a “patient” or actively:1. His cure, as a child by the sorceress of Murano to whom he is taken by his beloved grandmother.2. His guest in the little Italian village of Cesena for a buried treasure whic he prides himself on being able to discover with the help of a sacred knife.3. His inventive, libertine scenarios elaborated for the particular purpose of “regenerating” (dazzling and pleasuring) the marquise d'Urfé, known as Séramis, an old aristocrat with a passion for occult knowledge.Casanova's attitude towards all that has to do with gambling, deception, chance, and all the ways to influence it is thoroughly complex and ambiguous. It is one of the features of his Venetian mentality; and it is also a phenomenon of the time, which is wrongly called the “century of the Enlightenment”. More narrowly, close scrutiny of these three occasions should allow us to grasp how Casanova saw his place in the couple of the dupe and the trickster. This paper will show how he understood the world and its underlying forces, and what type of intelligence — more baroque than Cartesian in inspiration — was at work in him.

Accidental Families: Ritual and Initiation in Horace and La Comtesse de Rudolstadt

Crashing Through Chapter 27 of Horace takes the reader to the Paris barricades. The revolt of June 1832, one of many between the two revolutions of 1830 and 1848, was by far the bloodiest. Sand, who witnessed the uprising, calls it drame poignant in her Histoire de ma vie, and sees in its demise the birth of what she calls regne de la matiere. (1) Two decades later, in his Miserables, Hugo will distinguish this emeute from a full-fledged revolution by the very fact that it failed. In Horace, Sand simply calls the event revolution avortee. (2) She portrays two students fighting on the Republican side: Paul Arsene, an art student in Delacroix's atelier, and Jean Laraviniere, president des bousingots (p. 72). The two insurgents end up at the cloister of Saint-Merry, the infamous site of the massacre of some 800 men by government troups. Laraviniere disappears, seeming to succumb to the same fate as Balzac's Michel Chrestien (even though, ultimately, he survives), but Paul manages to escape. While Hugo will send Jean Valjean and Marius down into the Paris sewers in the aftermath of the same uprising, Sand propels Arsene up onto the rooftops. Wounded and bloody, he spies the window of a particular dwelling under the eaves: Il s'agissait de sauter d'un toit a l'autre pour entrer dans une mansarde par une fenetre inclinee [...] penchant le corps en avant, il se laissa tomber plutot qu'il ne s'elanca [...] Alors, se trainant sur ses genoux et ses coudes, car ses pieds et ses mains lui refusaient le service, il parvint jusqu'a la fenetre ... l'enfonca en posant ses deux genoux sur le vitrage ... [et] roula evanoui sur le carreau de la mansarde. (p. 252) By a poetic coincidence, the window that Paul has chosen, seemingly at random, brings him into the miserable hovel where the heroine Marthe has taken refuge with her newborn child. Thus are unexpectedly reunited in this scene two of the novel's main characters. There are several ways to understand this passage. The abundance of historically accurate and realistic elements emphasizes that Sand is dealing with a real-life event situated in a real-life space. The reprisals for this insurrection were particularly brutal, as doctors were obliged to denounce any insurgents they might be called upon to treat. In a letter written to her friend Laure Decerfz, Sand expressed her disgust with the powers in place: ... une ordonnance royale [in fact, the order emanated from the Prefecture de Police], affichee sur tous les murs, enjoint aux medecins et aux chirurgiens de declarer immediatement a la police le nom et la demeure des blesses qu'ils sont appeles a soigner a domicile! La police va fouiller le lit des mourants, arracher les cadavres aux larmes des familles, rouvrir les plaies a peine fermees. (3) When she wrote Horace a decade later, Sand accorded her heroine an uncanny premonition of this decree: [Marthe] marcha vers la porte pour appeler quelques voisins a son aide; mais, se rappelant aussitot que parmi ces gens ... un scelerat ou un poltron pouvait livrer le proscrit a la vengeance des lois, elle tira le verrou de la porte. (p. 253) In addition to accurate details such as this one, Sand also pursued an intense social agenda in Horace, and this chapter highlights in a dramatic way the double theme of poverty and hunger that runs throughout the novel. In this scene, Sand depicts the characters' extreme destitution, describing how Marthe and Paul survive on minute amounts of bread and milk. Finally, there is a fantastic element in Paul's choosing--seemingly by chance--to enter precisely the mansarde which belongs to Marthe. In fact this scene functions as a deliberate and conscious coup de theatre. Sand has Paul come crashing into the mansarde, I will argue, just as Sand herself goes crashing through the established classification of social types. …

Michel Brix (review)

504 Reviews lectuel exemplaire au siecle des Lumieres, reviewed here, is a highly readable collection of articles, beautifully produced and illustrated. It succeeds in that rare achievement, the provision of a more general overview of Marmontel's literary career without any lowering of academic content. Together the articles produce a fascinating portrait of Marmontel and can be enjoyed by those with a more general interest in the eigtheenth century as well as Marmontel scholars. The Memoires provide much of the material for the contributors, but his letters, Belisaire, Les Incas, his moral tales, his operas, Lecons d'un pere a ses enfants, and La Neuvaine de Cythere are all covered, making this a highly coherent and comprehensive volume. A number of the best-known Mar? montel specialists have contributed, from Rene Pomeau's introductory essay on the Memoires, to John Renwick's latest exploration of Les Incas, from Jacques Wagner's examination of duality and harmony in Marmontel's work, to James M. Kaplan's account ofhis erotic poetry. The range of approaches to Marmontel work nicely, from Jean-Claude Sangoi's use of Marmontel's life to illustrate the sociology of the family in the eighteenth century, to Lacanian readings of Belisaire (Katharine Swarbrick), to literary history (Malcolm Cook on Marmontel's depiction of the Revolution). The volume concludes with an article by Gilbert Beaubatie on homages to Marmontel in 1899, which form an amusing contrast with these bicentennial ones. A largely comprehensive bibliography of work on Marmontel since 1972 (the date of John Renwick's Bibliographie critique) is included at the end. There remains work to be done on Marmontel but this volume is another important step towards explaining the reasons forhis contemporary success and towards recognizing the significance of his varied contributions to literary life in the eighteenth century. It will undoubtedly become one of the key reference texts for all subsequent studies of one of the most representative hommesde lettresof the period. University of Warwick Kate Astbury Sade et les felons. By Michel Brix. Jaignes: La Chasse au Snark. 2003. 303 pp. ?20. ISBN 2-914015-31-3. Following his controversial essay attacking the nineteenth-century utopian Fourier and his latter-day disciples, Michel Brix offersus another pocket-sizedpolemic. Compact in size, Sade et lesfelons takes as its subject those eighteenth-century novels for which Rousseau coined his euphemistic phrase, 'les livres qu'on ne litque d'une main'. In fact, Brix's essay on libertinage and its representation in literature is decidedly anti-libertine. His introduction addresses the intractable question of definition: what, precisely, distinguishes the 'roman grivois' or the 'roman galant' from the 'roman libertin' ?What of anti-clerical novels with libertine themes? Brix skirts neatly round this complexity, concluding that libertinage is treated in essentially two differentways in these works: either as an evil to be denounced or as a philosophy of liberation to be promoted. For Brix has not the slightest doubt that libertinage is a male activity to be defined as Tart de tromper les femmes' (p. 49). Somewhat idiosyncratically, he concludes that the 'roman libertin' is the novel in which libertines?the 'felons' of the title?are represented i/wsympathetically.Conversely, those novels that paint lib? ertines in attractive hues are condemned as propaganda fora pernicious, male-centred philosophy. To this latter category belong works as multi-layered as L'Academie des dames and Therese philosophe, but Brix reserves his greatest contempt for Casanova's Histoire de ma vie, to which an entire chapter is devoted. For Brix, ie trompeur de Venise' is littlebetter than a rapist and paedophile who insinuates himself into families with the sole intention of bedding beautiful women and very young girls. Brix's coup de theatre, however, is his verdict on Sade, the subject of the rest of the book. Brix MLR, 100.2, 2005 505 naively takes Sade at his word when he claims to depict libertines as they truly are in order to deter the reader from imitating them. In Brix's terms, Sade is therefore an anti-libertine writer.However, the novels that do this are, forBrix, not 'anti-libertine' but 'libertine' novels: 'on reserverait l'etiquette de "romans libertins" aux recits...

The Duel (review)

REVIEWS497 Giacomo Casanova. The Duel. Foreword by Tim Parks. London: Hesperus Press, 2003. xvi + 109pp. £6.99. ISBN: 1-84391-032-2. Casanova's posdiumous reputation was made by the publication (in French) of his autobiography (completed in 1798, the year of his death), but during his lifetime the Italian adventurer was known for the events related in two short narratives: Histoire de mafuite desprisons [...] de Venise { 1788), the history of his escape from the infamous Venetian Piombi in 1756, and Il Duello (1780). The latter, which recounts Casanova's 1766 duel widi a minor Polish nobleman named Branicki, has now been published by Hesperus Press in a fine translation byJ.G. Nichols, along with Nichols's new translation of die chapter (volume 10, chapter 8) from Histoire de ma vie, where Casanova later rewrote the same episode. Unlike the second, explicidy autobiographical version, the story of The Duel is told entirely in the third person, with Casanova systematically referring to himself as "the Venetian." According to Casanova's accounts, Branicki provoked the duel bywarning him off a Venetian dancer—then appearing at court in Warsaw—and publicly expressing such undisguised contempt for him and the Venetian nation that Casanova ultimately had no choice but to challenge "the PodstoIi " (or buder: Branicki was a member die Equestrian Order ofGrand Podstoli to the Crown) to a duel. The conflict between Casanova's frequent ironies about titles, the nobility, and monarchs (he also makes fun of Marie Leszczynska 's power to make chicken fricassé into the most fashionable dish in France, pp. 12-13) and his own claim to nobility—not to mention his worship ofLouis XV—is not the least ofthe many paradoxes in this story. TL· Dueloffers a delightful blend ofcynical observation (one learns, for example, how to succeed at court in Russia, why military decorations are both foolish and useful, and why monarchs must speak "straightforwardly and precisely"), observations on human nature (how to bear and exploit it), and applied philosophical reasoning (why pity is a heroic feeling, pace Rousseau, p. 61). If all of this reasoning and rationality were merely part of a constructive, demystifying project, as in coundess Enlightenment texts that aim to loosen the hold of religious thought upon the human mind, they would be simply amusing, but ultimately trivial. In Casanova's tale, however, there is something obsessively religious about rational operations: it is as if Casanova needed reason to conjure away the force of his own irrational behaviour. Should he challenge Branicki to a duel? The Prince Palatine, informed of die dilemma, advises Casanova to do "much or nodiing" (p. 18). Over die course ofseven pages (pp. 16-22), Casanova weighs the arguments for and against challenging Branicki to a duel: Whatwould Plato's Socrates have done? What would Christ have done? What ifBranicki refuses the challenge? And finally, for a man whose material comfort depends upon maintaining credit at court, does any of diis philosophizing matter? The answer quickly presents itselfin ostensibly rational form: "As a result of this reasoning, based on a knowledge of the human heart and the strength of prevailing prejudices, he ["the 498 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION16:3 Venetian"] prepared without any loss oftime to send die knight a note which did in fact challenge him" (p. 22). Yet, however one mayjustify risking one's life in a duel, ultimately this can never be a rational decision. As Georges Bataille has shown, rationality is based, literally ( > ratio), upon calculation, upon a determination of die resources necessary to survive, whereas duelling is a "non-rational" operation. The willingness to risk one's life for the sake of honour was die classic mark ofnoble consciousness, in which a noble defined himselfas far above die vulgar, ignoble concern with survival. Although he does not mention it in TL· Duel, from 1760 Casanova had been calling himself "Casanova de Seingalt," a fact that would account for his repeated and apparendy unmotivated retorts, both at the beginning and end of the story, to accusations of having falsely represented himself at Court: "He was introduced [at Court] by no odier name than die one which he took from his humble birdi" (p. 6); "He would not...

Editor's Note

Editor's Note The directions of scholarship in eighteenth-century studies are quite exciting, as the essays in this volume suggest. These pieces, all presented at a regional or national meeting of the American Society for EighteenthCentury Studies, draw on unusual archival materials, discuss a variety of non-"literary" or extra-textual materials, employ new theoretical approaches, or offer innovative discussions of canonical texts. Like our field of study, which embraces multiple disciplines, this volume creates vibrant conversation, a heterogeneous mix of approaches, texts, and languages. The "novel" as a genre remains a dominant focus, and a number of essays in this volume offer new perspectives on the genre or new readings of canonical texts. Neil Saccamano reads dramatizations of sentimental attachments in relation to discussions of political authority in Laclos 's Les Liaisons dangereuses. Barbara Benedict explores the ways early advertising discourse, like early fiction of Eliza Haywood and Daniel Defoe, commodifies desire, and the implications of that parallel on the novel. In her discussion of Burney's Cecilia, Susan Greenfield redefines "madness" as a kind of heroic quixotism, and explores the interesting intersections between madness and imagination. The connection between prison reform efforts and the English Jacobin novel is the focus of Alexander Pitofsky's essay. Though Casanova's Histoire de ma vie is not a novel, that autobiography is often compared to one; within the text, suggests Ted Emery, Casanova critiques the novel's construction of feminine subjectivity. Laurence Mall distinguishes the tragic exoticism of the Abbé Prévost's Histoire de M. Cleveland'from the ancillary exoticism of the baroque novel that preceded it and the aesthetically charged exoticism of the Romantics that followed. These pieces share a concern with situating fictional discourses into a wider cultural field. A number of essays use unusual or little-known sources or materials. Melissa Downes discusses The Jamaica Lady, a novel published long ago in William McBurney 's Four Before Richardson (1963) but infrequently discussed since. She reveals how deeply imbricated the conversation about the West Indies—both in terms of finance and race—is with the anxieties emerging from the South Sea Bubble. April Shelford similarly focuses on the Caribbean as the context for her discussion of an unidentified eighteenth- xii / Editor's Note century British sailor's previously uncovered journal and the journals of Edward Thompson. Laura Schattschneider examines the narratives implicitly created by "tokens"—or "infant's petitions"— left with foundlings at the foundling hospital, and their intersections with contemporaneous novels. These three essays demonstrate how archival work and unusual sources invigorate our discipline. The volume also includes essays that explore notions of "author"-ity. Geoffrey Turnovsky suggests how the dystopic representation of commercial publishing and so-called "marginal" writers redefine both the literary marketplace and the construction of authorship in eighteenth-century France. Discussing the poetry of Stephen Duck, James Mulholland examines the use of singing, as differentiated from other types of orality, and its relation to class, gender, and poetic authority in the pastoral. Caroline Weber explores the representations of statuary in eighteenth-century French painting and literature, and focuses on their implications for subjectivity, sociability, and gender. Samuel Johnson's commitment in his moral writing to the ancient Stoic and Baconian principle that learning and happiness derive from attempting difficulties and registering mistakes is the subject of Jeffrey Barnouw's essay. George Haggerty reconsiders the correspondence between Horace Walpole and William Cole, usually considered in terms of antiquarianism, in terms of homosocial interaction. Finally, the volume contains a cluster of essays that meditate on "beauty" in the eighteenth century. The first three of these four essays were drawn from the 32nd annual meeting of the Midwestern ASECS which was organized around the theme of beauty. Downing Thomas, program chair, hoped to encourage the discussion of eighteenth-century creations and preoccupations within the aesthetic frameworks of the period, but also in light of recent critical concerns with the category of the aesthetic and the renewed interest in beauty that has emerged at the turn of the millennium. All three essays from the conference frame the recent return of interest in beauty in light of the complex discourses that grappled with the subject throughout the...