La Princesse Research Articles

Ancient Mythology in “La Princesse Maleine” by Maurice Maeterlinck: Intertextual Analysis

The article is devoted to the reconstitution of the mythological worldview of the well-known European Symbolist writer Maurice Maeterlinck based on his famous drama ‘Princess Maleine’ that made a great impact on the development of the ‘new drama’ in the end of the 19th century. This analysis is performed in the context of the study of the symbolist semiotic system in French-speaking tradition. The lingua-poetic and mythopoeic intertextual analysis done, we have found that the mythological model in the play is functioning with a large system of mythological structures and semantic patterns. The locus of ‘Princess Maleine’ is marked as Hades World and its inhabitants are connoting the mythical concept BAD LUCK. Only two actors, the protagonists Maleine and Hjalmar are connoted not only by the morbid semantics but also as the correlates of the astral world. Their death in Hades makes possible the eschatological catastrophe leading to the neutralization of the killers whereas the infernal semantics is neutralized and the cosmos tends to the restoring of harmony symbolized by the coming of the new day and of the new year. Besides, the protagonists are considered to be the sacred sacrifice to change the semantics of the mythological concept BAD LUCK to the harmonized GOOD LUCK. Three mythological models are reconstructed: LIFE with positive connotation, LIFE with negative connotation and DEATH with positive connotation. The projection of the play is modeled by the movement from the positively and negatively connoted concept LIFE to the positively connoted concept DEATH that is a distinctive sign of Symbolist conception of ‘tragic optimism’ developed by Maeterlinck.

Lettres d'une Péruvienne : An Eighteenth-Century Fairy Tale?

Abstract: In this essay, we examine how the popular genres of the fairy tale and the merveilleux influenced Françoise de Graffigny's writing of Lettres d'une Péruvienne ( Letters from a Peruvian Woman ). We demonstrate how the author incorporates elements of the wonderous in her descriptions and themes, especially in Letter 35. In a comparison of the fairy tale that Graffigny herself wrote, La Princesse Azerolle, ou l'excès de la constance ( Princess Azerolle, or the Excess of Constancy ), to her famous novel, we uncover the thematic elements that appear in both. Finally, we speculate as to why scholars have overlooked the inspiration of the fairy tale in favor of the novel's Enlightenment associations.

Fidelity, Betrayal, and Desire: Translating La princesse de Clèves

AbstractWhile it no longer seems possible to speak of an invisible narrator of La princesse de Clèves, the 1678 historical novel by Madame de Lafayette, the notion of an invisible translator defines the work of late-twentieth-century English translations of the novel. According to this view, the translator should remain unseen by the reader and therefore “faithful” to the original text, so as not to upset the interpretive possibilities that Lafayette offers. In fact, however, the translator's infidelity is both necessary and vital to interpreting eros in La princesse de Clèves. The novel itself makes infidelity a form of insight, and Lafayette's vocabulary forces English translators into situations where any choice can be simultaneously unfaithful and correct. Like the character of the princess, translators have conflicting fidelities that should be made visible to fully reveal the richness of the novel.

"ПРИНЦЕССА ГРЁЗА": МЕЖДУ ЛИТЕРАТУРНЫМ ОБРАЗОМ И ИСТОРИЧЕСКИМ ПЕРСОНАЖЕМ

This article attempts to reconstruct the historical context in which the well-known verses on “distant love” (amor de lohn), composed by the Provençal poet Jaufré Rudel, gave rise to a legend that became popular in medieval literature. A romantic story about a troubadour who fell in love with a Beautiful Lady gained extraordinary popularity among the romantics of the 19th century. It was used in a number of literary works of various genres – from the poems of Francesco Petrarca, Heinrich Heine, Ludwig Uhland, to Edmond Rostand’s play “The Distant Princess” (La Princesse Lointaine). For the first time the Distant Princess, with whom the troubadour supposedly fell in love without ever seeing her, was identified with the Countess of Tripoli in the legendary vida of the troubadour dating from the mid-13th century. Later, we see the story repeated many times in the literary monuments including the works of romantics of the 19th and 20th centuries. Traditionally, literary scholars debate the question whether the Countess of Tripoli should be considered as a fictitious character or a historical figure. Avoiding that dispute, the author seeks to single out those events and facts in the history of the house of Tripoli and its members that could be reinterpreted in the folk imagination and historical memory

Lee, Wendy Anne. Failures of Feeling: Insensibility and the Novel.

Lee, Wendy Anne. <i>Failures of Feeling: Insensibility and the Novel</i>.

Competing Selves in Madame de Lafayette’s La Princesse de Montpensier and the Nouvelle Historique

This article analyzes the different selves operating in Madame de Lafayette’s La Princesse de Montpensier. Contrary to scholarship, which tends to position the text as a mere precursor of La Princesse de Clèves, it is in La Princesse de Montpensier where one first locates the interior. Lafayette presented a princess coming to terms with her identity, debating with different selves against a backdrop of social, historical, and political ideals. The nouvelle historique was central to the development of selves; it was an important medium through which Lafayette could perceive, explore, and contest a woman’s identity in relation to society. The genre also enabled writers to examine themselves. Lafayette used it to test out her own authorial self and locate her place in the literary sphere.

EDITOR’S NOTE

EDITOR’S NOTE

Variantes sur la figure du mentor au XVIIe siècle

Cet article explorera la figure du mentor dans des textes du XVIIe siècle en utilisant trois ressources électroniques, le logiciel d’analyse de texte Voyant, la base de données Satorbase, et BiblioToucher, une bibliothèque virtuelle de textes intégraux d’Ancien Régime. À partir des configurations de mentorat dans quatre textes bien différents (Le Voyage dans la lune, la Princesse de Clèves, Amelonde et l’étonnante Histoire de la Marquise-Marquis de Banneville) les mots clés du mentorat seront identifiés et analysés (fréquence, distribution et collocations). Ceci permettra non seulement d’en tirer des topoï dans ces textes mais aussi de tenter de retrouver ces mêmes topoï dans d’autres textes de l’époque.

Les contes de Mme D’Aulnoy : de l’amour precieux au libertinage voilé

À la fin du XVIIe siècle, la mode des contes de fées se répand dans la littérature française. Cette mode se présente sous deux versants : l’un décliné au masculin illustré par les oeuvres de Charles Perrault, l’autre, au féminin illustré par des conteuses, descendantes des Précieuses. Parmi ces femmes, Mme D’Aulnoy est la plus célèbre. Cette dernière publia, en 1697 et en 1698, deux recueils de contes,destinés à l’origine aux adultes lettrés mais qui, au fil des siècles, furent repris dans la littérature de jeunesse, souvent pour répondre aux premiers émois des jeunes-filles. Ces contes de fées sont tous des quêtes d’amour très influencées par la préciosité aussi bien en ce qui concerne l’idée de l’amour que sa forme d’expression. Le conte intitulé Gracieuse et Percinet est l’équivalent d’un roman précieux enminiature. Pourtant, au-delà de ce premier niveau de lecture, on peut distinguer une forme de pastichedont l’illustration est le conte intitulé La Princesse Printanière. Sous l’expression précieuse de l’amourse cache donc un libertinage voilé qui se manifeste souvent grâce à la métamorphose animale despersonnages.Mots clés : amour, contes de fées, préciosité, libertinage

The Valise Correspondence: A Reconsideration of Nadia and Lili Boulanger, Composers

The Valise CorrespondenceA Reconsideration of Nadia and Lili Boulanger, Composers Kimberly Francis (bio) and Hayley Berry When Nadia Boulanger died, the executors of her estate donated an extensive collection of primary sources to the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The contents of a specific valise, or suitcase, were meant to be left unopened until 2011, and scholars are now gaining access to these sensitive materials. Most recently, Fiorella Sassanelli published a comprehensive inventory of the suitcase in her book Lili Boulanger: Frammenti ritrovati di una vita interotta (2018). Sassanelli's text also contains the transcription and translation from French into Italian of more than sixty letters exchanged between the Boulanger sisters from 1905 to 1917. This correspondence begs for an extensive English-language treatment. Doing so will cast new light on the Boulanger sisters' careers and provide details for understanding musical developments of the past hundred years. Here, I focus on three series of letters exchanged between Lili and Nadia: one set from May 1913, one letter from 2 March 1914, and the series of letters written at the end of Lili's life.1 These letters pertain to two major works by Lili Boulanger: Faust et Hélène and La princesse Maleine. The first of these works has received little attention in the scholarly literature beyond a summary analysis by Caroline Potter. Annegret Fauser's discussion of women's participation in the Prix de Rome competition provides a thorough account of Lili Boulanger's public persona but does not touch upon the music of the cantata itself—understandably so, given the previous lack of sources.2 The valise letters make a robust discussion [End Page 132] of the work's genesis possible. The second of these works, La princesse Maleine, is arguably the most significant composition undertaken by Lili Boulanger and has already received extensive attention by Fauser. That said, to quote Fauser, her work was "necessarily speculative," even if it did allow scholars to "look into [Lili Boulanger's] workshop."3 To extend Fauser's metaphor, these newly available letters allow us to peer over Boulanger's shoulder during the commissioning process. The letters pertaining to Faust et Hélène provide unprecedented evidence concerning Lili Boulanger's compositional methods, her processing of dramatic texts, her navigation of competition politics, and her calling upon the support of professional women within her orbit, most importantly, Nadia Boulanger. The letters pertaining to La princesse Maleine speak to Lili Boulanger's professional ambitions, her striking awareness of gender constructs, and her navigation of the professional world as guided by her older sister's advice. I present these two sets of letters as glimpses of Lili Boulanger's process along with unprecedented details of the sisters' synergistic creative process, showing that, above all others, Lili Boulanger placed immense emphasis on the opinions of her older sister. The Boulangers truly were, to borrow Potter's description, "sister composers."4 This correspondence calls for the celebration of a unique professional model in Western art music whereby two women assumed responsibility for the maturation and support of one another's creative talents. These letters bring to life a woman-centered artistic space, providing one model of women's creative development. Thus, I argue that on a broader, historiographical scale this dialogue offers a unique way of thinking about women's creative lives, especially two women whose artistry contained the additional rich influence of sisterhood. Prix de Rome, 1913: Politics, Prejudice, and Persuasion Lili Boulanger first entered the Prix de Rome competition in May 1912 without advancing to the final round.5 The following spring she returned, carrying wellwishes and advice from numerous prominent French musicians, including Paul Vidal, Raoul Pugno, Charles-Marie Widor, and her teacher, Georges Caussade.6 The assignment in 1913 was without surprises: write a cantata on a scene from Gounod's Faust, with text by Eugène Adénis. The valise letters reveal three major themes regarding Boulanger's process: (1) her outright courting of the judges' favor; (2) her subtle manipulation of dramatic texts; and (3) her reliance on her sister's guidance and professional influence. Overall, this project tells us a great deal [End Page 133] Click...

A Tale of Two Sultans: Franco-Moroccan ReInventions of Mūlāy Ismā'īl and his Marriage Proposal to La Princesse de Conti

In this article, we explore the Orientalized perception and racialized representation of the Afro-Arab sultan of Morocco MūlāyIsmā' īl(r. 1672 to 1727) as found in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French sources. We do so by chiefly revisiting the mock "fairy tale love story" of MūlāyIsmā' īl, including his alleged marriage proposal to Marie Anne de Bourbon, la Princesse de Conti, the eldest legitimized and favorite daughter of King Louis XIV of France. After examining the Orientalist tropes of French and European images of MūlāyIsmā' īl, we turn to a number of modern and contemporary Moroccan defenses of MūlāyIsmā' īl, especially as articulated by Moroccan historian and apologist Ibn Zaydān, one of presumably thousands of MūlāyIsmā' īl's descendants. Our aim is to explore how the racially charged Franco demonizations and the discursively loaded Moroccan vindications of MūlāyIsmā' īlhave been reinvented and renegotiated in French and Arabic historical and literary sources from the seventeenth century up to the twenty-first century.

Introduction: In This World

Introduction: In This World

Trois scènes de bal dans le roman français (« La Princesse de Clèves », « Madame Bovary », « Le Ravissement de Lol V Stein »)

"Three Ball Scenes in the French Novel (“La Princesse de Clèves”, “Madame Bovary”, “Le Ravissement de Lol V Stein”). This article aims to analyze – in a comparative manner – three ball scenes from novels belonging to leading authors of French literature (Madame de Lafayette, Gustave Flaubert and Marguerite Duras), highlighting a series of dramatic mechanisms used by novelists in the construction of such a diegetic plot. If La Princesse de Clèves describes a ball that takes place in the royal court, with all the typical scenes of the time (embodied in a real mixture of intrigue and gallantry specific to the living environment of the actors, which make the topos of the novel itself become a collective character), Madame Bovary describes, instead, a ball animated by the high society of the nineteenth century, with all the specifics of the realistic episteme (the ball becomes here an opportunity to evoke the painful contrast between different living environments, which the heroine cannot access and which causes her, consequently, to take refuge in an imaginary universe). Much closer to the spirit of contemporaneity, Le Ravissement de Lol V Stein, the famous “nouveau roman”, relies on an image of the harmful and destructive ball, paying particular attention to the psyche of the characters. These novels lean – starting from this narrative pretext of the ball – on some love stories built through specific strategies of the theatre, which is, in essence, the central object of our analysis. Keywords: ball scenes, French Novel, dramatic mechanisms, narrative pretext, love stories."

Molière, Théâtre complet, ii. Édition de Charles Mazouer

This is the second volume of a five-volume edition of Molière’s complete plays (for a review of vol. i, see FS, 71 (2017), 570–71). It is both literally and metaphorically weighty: it contains the seven plays first performed between 1662 and 1665, including therefore L’École des femmes, Tartuffe, and Dom Juan. There is no general introduction and no general bibliography, since they appeared in vol. i, but the text of each play is preceded by its own introduction (including presentation of textual and bibliographical problems). Moreover, each play is accompanied by its own critical bibliography. In some ways, this feature can seem repetitive, as certain items keep recurring. But it is nonetheless an extremely useful feature of this edition, since the editor includes all relevant books, chapters, and articles published up to 2018. The other useful feature (as in vol. i) is Charles Mazouer’s reproduction of the musical scores of the comédies-ballets (in this case, Le Mariage forcé and La Princesse d’Élide). Two plays pose acute textual problems — Le Mariage forcé and Dom Juan — and Mazouer presents these lucidly. He offers readers the 1664 livret of Le Mariage forcé and the 1668 edition of the text of the play. In the case of Dom Juan, unlike Georges Forestier and Claude Bourqui, the editors of the Pléiade Molière (Paris: Gallimard, 2010), who reproduce the text of the 1683 Amsterdam edition (as being arguably closest to the version Molière performed in 1665), Mazouer prefers the text of one of the least-censored copies of the 1682 edition, supplemented by generous variants. Mazouer’s approach in the introductory materials is clear, direct, and knowledgeable. He is honest about the existence of plural readings. For instance, ‘quelle signification Molière voulait-il donner aux aventures du libertin et de son valet? [… L]’herméneutique de Dom Juan a toujours posé problème’ (p. 806). But his own preferences are always evident (and often persuasive): ‘Molière éprouvait certainement de la sympathie pour son Dom Juan, et devait vouloir que nous en éprouvions’ (p. 807). My ongoing anxiety about this project concerns the price. The volume retails at €59, and there are to be five volumes. That seems to me to put the edition beyond the reach of a significant part of its target readership, consigning it to the shelves of academic libraries.

‘Fantôme de devoir’: The Princesse de Clèves’s Haunting Duty

This article explores the ways in which the characters of Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette's La Princesse de Clèves manipulate the conventions surrounding death in seventeenth-century France. It argues that Mme de Chartres prevents her daughter from participating in the traditional ceremonies surrounding death that were intended to comfort the living as much as the dying. In so doing, Mme de Chartres creates a sort of psychic ghost. One such manifestation of this ghost is the term ‘devoir,’ one that Mme de Chartres herself used in life. M. de Clèves's later death functions as a rewriting of Mme de Chartres's; it provides an opportunity for the princess to assert herself as an active participant in her husband's deathbed scene, a role which her mother had not previously allowed her to assume. This motivates the princess to retreat to a convent, where no one, not even the narrator, bears witness to her passing.

Becoming a Francophile: A Half-Century Love Affair by Leonard Rosmarin

Reviewed by: Becoming a Francophile: A Half-Century Love Affair by Leonard Rosmarin Alice J. Strange Rosmarin, Leonard, Becoming a Francophile: A Half-Century Love Affair. Mosaic, 2019. ISBN 978-1-771614344. Pp. 241. In this memoir, a Canadian professor of French, retired from Brock University in Ontario, sets out to identify the forces that contribute to his identity as a Francophile. He spent extended periods in France as a student, director of a study abroad program, and visiting professor at Université de Perpignan. His descriptions of life in France are interesting but scarcely original. Conventional points are covered: first impressions, student life, French bureaucracy, housing issues, French friends, cultural sites, and, especially, his love of French history and literature. As an educator, he frequently compares French and Canadian educational institutions, illustrating his impressions with anecdotes. Unlike Canadian students, French university students like to present a challenging attitude toward a new professor. He enjoyed a sense of professional triumph when he gained their respect and became a popular professor. His command of French opened doors to friendships, often with teachers and administrators at his or his daughters' schools. He interacts with a privileged, educated segment of French society and rarely refers to larger social or political issues. French friends, whom he describes in detail, figure greatly in his positive memories. The most appealing sections of the work are his excursions into the Pyrénées-Orientales. This southeastern-most [End Page 250] department of France, nestled between the Mediterranean and the Spanish border, abounds in cultural interests. The French Catalan region is especially beautiful and rich in popular traditions. On the other hand, at several points in the text, Rosmarin abruptly switches his focus away from lived personal experience to insert basic historical facts and summaries of literary works with which he has a special connection. These digressions consist of information familiar to Francophile readers and seem at odds with his announced project. For example, he includes a digression on the life and achievements of Charles de Gaulle. At Versailles, he expounds on the life of Louis XIV. At a dramatic performance in Perpignan, he recounts in detail the plot of Corneille's Le Cid. In each case, these digressions disrupt the flow of his personal memories and seem detached from his undertaking. In addition, the Francophile reader may also feel startled when Rosmarin translates even the most basic French expressions into English. His concluding chapter is an analysis of love à la française, in the form of an academic discourse. Rather than refer to any personal experiences, he devotes the final chapter to an investigation of a French belief that passion and marriage are irreconcilable. To support this theory, Rosmarin summarizes La princesse de Clèves, Manon Lescaut, and Les liaisons dangereuses as examples of his view. Although the connection is not clear, the reader is left to assume that this belief contributes to his identity as a Francophile. Overall, this memoir seems intended for the author's family and associates, and readers unfamiliar with the basics of French language and culture. Some Francophile readers may enjoy comparing Rosmarin's experiences to their own, but they will find few original insights. Alice J. Strange Southeast Missouri State University, emerita Copyright © 2020 American Association of Teachers of French

À L'ombre De Vautrin: Proust Et Balzac by Mariolina Bongiovanni-Bertini

Reviewed by: À L'ombre De Vautrin: Proust Et Balzac by Mariolina Bongiovanni-Bertini Hollie Harder Bongiovanni-Bertini, Mariolina. À l'ombre de Vautrin: Proust et Balzac. Garnier, 2019. ISBN 978-2-406-08382-5. Pp. 209. Although Balzac's manner of depicting characters and illustrating social codes in La comédie humaine has often been compared to that of Proust in À la recherche du temps perdu, Bongiovanni-Bertini expands and enriches this critical tradition in her superb analysis of the Balzacian narrative techniques adopted by Proust to express some of his most profound ideas about literature and human nature. Her careful examination of Balzac's presence in Proust's opus, beginning with Jean Santeuil, under-scores shared elements in the novelists' works, such as textual heterogeneity (where commentaries on morality, politics, and philosophy regularly interrupt conventional storylines), encyclopedic explanations, melodramatic plot twists, linguistic diversity, and the novelty of characters who, transformed by time, reappear over the course of a number of volumes. But the central focus of this comparative study is the notion of déchiffrement, a writing strategy that appears chez Proust, for example, as early as 1903 in a Figaro article where he suggests that an architectural detail of the hôtel of a Parisian salonnière reveals an unsuspected trait of her personality. According to Bongiovanni-Bertini, Proust draws his inspiration for this literary technique largely from Balzac's "Les secrets de la princesse de Cadignan" and the multifarious personnage, Vautrin. In the short story, a veritable "texte-charnière" (47) for Proust, Diane de Cadignan tells complex lies to hide from her lover, Daniel d'Arthez, certain indiscretions in her past, a situation that foreshadows those of Albertine, Odette, and Morel in the Recherche. Like the princess's amoureux, Swann and Charlus are intent on interpreting the inscrutable signs of their loved ones. Unlike d'Arthez, however, the characters in Proust's novel ultimately fail in their attempts to decipher the other. Integral to the act of déchiffrement for both writers are the role of imagination in the experience of love and the impact of suffering on those who fear that at any moment, embarrassing details of their lives may emerge. From Proust's perspective, Vautrin's unique skill in [End Page 213] concealing a multitude of identities and secrets enables him to function as "le déchiffreur de 'l'envers de l'histoire contemporaine'" and represent "la 'vérité selon Balzac'" (118), the same sort of clandestine truth that Charlus elucidates in the world of the Recherche. The baron's gift for deciphering words, gestures, sounds, and images—the legacy of his literary forefather, Vautrin—makes Charlus not only "le plus balzacien des personnages de Proust" (165) but also the "porte-parole de la lecture proustienne de Balzac" (188). In a critical work of such high quality, it is surprising to find a gender error in the title of the first chapter. Nonetheless, this impressive study greatly enhances our understanding and appreciation of Balzac's substantial influence on the forme and fond of the Recherche. Hollie Harder Brandeis University (MA) Copyright © 2020 American Association of Teachers of French

От Рихарда Вагнера – к собственному стилю: оперное творчество в статьях Камиля Сен-Санса

The articles about music published in France at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century present immense opportunities for research and analysis of this most abundant period of the history of musical culture. Of particular interest are the publications of Camille Saint-Saens, who imprinted the evaluations of his operatic compositions. On the one hand, they allow us to glance at the process of musical creativity from the position of the author, and on the other hand, they provide aid during an analysis of the formation of the composer’s aesthetic principles. The literary legacy of Saint-Saens is vast and consists of over 500 articles published during the course of fifty years of his artistic path. The present work examines the composer’s publications devoted to his operas in the context of the influence of Wagner and his system of leitmotifs. Fragments of the composer’s articles dealing with his operas “Samson et Dalila” (1877) and “Helene” (1904) are discussed. In his late works, Saint-Saens examines the limitations of Wagner’s system in connection with his opera works. He contemplates creating his personal style developing Wagner’s techniques but gravitating towards a lighter type of orchestration for the sake of highlighting the vocal part and giving it the most prominence. The reported study was funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) according to the research project No. 18-312-00195. Keywords: Camille Saint-Saens, Richard Wagner, the opera legacy of Saint-Saens, Wagner and Saint-Saens, “La Princesse jaune,” “Samson et Dalila,” “Helene.”

Genre et littérature au XVIIe siècle : « La Princesse de Clèves » et ses enjeux politiques

&lt;p&gt;This article explores the political implications, both at the time and for present-day readers, of the way La Princesse de Clèves calls into question gender norms/roles. Analyzing plots and characters in Lafayette’s text and readers/critics’ reactions in various contexts, it foregrounds the unsettling potential of a text that paradoxically moved from the position of hapax-cum- media-sensation to that of a paradigm of the early-modern novel. By focusing on its continued efficacy in disturbing heteronormative stereotypes, it sheds light on the way literature from before the modern era can contribute to identifying and analyzing queerness and gender dissidence in past historical contexts.&lt;/p&gt;

La formation en francais a finalite d'integration : cas des adultes syriens et jordaniens dans le Centre de la Princesse Basma pour le developpement

La formation en francais a finalite d'integration : cas des adultes syriens et jordaniens dans le Centre de la Princesse Basma pour le developpement