Self-Fashioning and Performance in the Autobiographical Work of Sand, Bernhardt and Colette
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Copyright by Laetitia Cindy Zembski 2019 The Dissertation Committee for Laetitia Cindy Zembski Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation Mes Tissages: Self-fashioning and Performance in the Autobiographical Work of Sand, Bernhardt and Colette Committee: Alexandra Wettlaufer, Supervisor Hervé Picherit Carol MacKay Lynn Wilkinson Mes Tissages: Self-fashioning and Performance in the Autobiographical Work of Sand, Bernhardt and Colette. by Laetitia Cindy Zembski Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2019 Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Alexandra Wettlaufer, my supervisor, for her support, patience, guidance, and encouragement throughout this project. I would also like to thank the department of French and Italian as well as my graduate coordinator Jessica Luhn for her resources and assistance. Finally, I wish to thank my parents Odile and Jacky Zembski for following me on my research trips and bringing me to Nohant and Saint-Sauveur. I could not have finished my dissertation project without them, or my dog Brewsky and their unconditional love. iv Abstract Mes Tissages: Self-fashioning and Performance in the Autobiographical Work of Sand, Bernhardt and Colette. Laetitia Cindy Zembski, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2019 Supervisor: Alexandra Wettlaufer This dissertation examines the self-fashioning of three female writers/artists, George Sand (1804-1876), Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) and Gabrielle-Sidonie Colette (1873-1954). Considering their shared affinity with writing and the theater, I argue that each author refashions her self-portrait and public image by means of a unique textual performance, which is conveyed through clothing on stage as actresses (Bernhardt and Colette), backstage as playwrights, and on the page as authors. My goal in this work is to connect the autobiographical corpus of these three writers to the art of needlework and textile in the context of genre, gender, identity and performance. I am particularly interested in the ways fabric serves as a literal and metaphoric second skin to Sand, Bernhardt and Colette, who present the private self (the feminine body) to the public. First, I will analyze how Sand uses a patchwork of various genres in Histoire de ma vie (1854). Next, I will focus on Sarah Bernhardt’s ability to use the autobiographical genre as a draping cloth to perform various identities in a fiction of her reality in order to conceal the v self in Ma double vie (1907) and in the visual arts. I ultimately show how Colette embroiders an imaginary canvas as a form of metaphor in Claudine series (1900-1904), and La Vagabonde (1911) as well as three later works: La maison de Claudine’s “La couseuse” (1922), Mes apprentissages (1936) and Broderie ancienne (1944). Textual analysis of autobiographies, memoirs, auto-fictions, and manuscripts, as well as close studies of agendas, newspapers and correspondence comprise the various sources I examine. I most importantly focus on the role of textiles in and within the autobiographical narratives in order to analyze the authors’ strategies to subvert the dominant phallocentric discourses and power structures from the fall of the July Monarchy with the Revolution of 1848 to the end of La Belle Époque in 1914. vi Table of Contents List of Illustrations ............................................................................................................ xii MES TISSAGES: SELF-FASHIONING AND PERFORMANCE IN THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WORK OF SAND, BERNHARDT AND COLETTE ..............................................................1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Autobiography as a Patchwork Quilt in George Sand’s Histoire de ma vie ......8 Introduction .................................................................................................................8 Portrayals of George Sand And Her “Travaux d’Aiguille” ........................................9 George Sand’s Needlework Through the Eyes of Family and Friends ..........9 In Art: Delacroix’s Double Portrait and Creativity Captured in The Moment ...................................................................................................12 Needle or Cigarette? : Sand and the Stigma of Smoking.....................12 Representing Madame George Sand Holding the Needle: Taboo Topic and Controversies ................................................................14 The cigar, the needle and the pen: channeling androgyny ...................16 1848: writing, needlework and the autobiographical project of solidarity and gender fluidity ..................................................................................17 George Sand and Aurora Leigh: the art of weaving the word to craft a new vision ...............................................................................................19 Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Tributes to George Sand and The Representation of Needle Workers as Artists ................................19 Aurora Leigh and Aurore Dupin: Finding a Voice Through the Art of Needlework. ...............................................................................21 Needlework : connecting women of various social class ....................23 Needlework crafts a powerful family bond ..................................................25 The mother-daughter bond ...................................................................25 vii Concealing personal feelings: hiding the unwanted threads. ...............28 Broken threads and broken bonds: Sand-Sophie forced separation.....29 Cutting stitches : withdrawing her personal interest for needlework ..32 1847-1856: the pivotal years to self-fashioning an autobiographical identity and creating artistic needlework ................................................33 Self-fashioning a new “type” from 1844 Jeanne to Histoire de ma vie .......35 Tearing fabric: undoing text and textiles .............................................36 Undoing the autobiographical male model ..........................................37 Weaving the Patchwork Quilt : Form, Function and Content in Histoire de ma vie ........................................................................................................................40 Patchwork quilt as a form of métissage ........................................................41 Stenterello: a patchwork portrait of a historical protagonist. ...............41 From Lionnet’s concept of métissage: weaving the word in patchwork quilt and hybridity ........................................................44 The autobiographical structure: form and functions of the patchwork quilt inscribed in Histoire de ma vie. * .................................................45 Marketing the self in a male-dominated literary sphere, inscribing the self in the collective .................................................................46 Layers of Patchwork Quilt and Autobiographical Layers ...................50 Patchwork as mosaic art: a form of métissage .....................................53 Crafting the crazy quilt and challenging the male model ....................56 Corambé: the center of fiction “le médaillon” .....................................57 Challenging authority in the epistolary structure. .........................................59 Reusing fabric: gathering and rewriting authentic letters ....................59 Cutting fabric: the most creative act ....................................................60 viii The epistolary backbone : asserting patriarchal functions of the family household ............................................................................61 Challenging phallogocentric discourse: transgressing “sans ordre” ....62 The autobiographical hybridity: content of the patchwork quilt inscribed in Histoire de ma vie as a form of métissage. .........................................................64 Needlework as a Rhetorical Tool for a Subversive Autobiographical Discourse ....68 Chapter 2: Drapery and Duplicity in Sarah Bernhardt’s Ma Double Vie: Performing a Fiction of Reality .........................................................................................................73 Introduction ...............................................................................................................73 Drapery in Bernhardt’s Ma Double Vie: Inner Skin and Outer skin .......................79 Drapery .........................................................................................................79 Internalizing Body Distortion: Sketching the Self ........................................81 From Inside Out ............................................................................................86 Resilience: from “malgré-moi” to “quand même”...............................86 Duality of the Villain-Hero: A Critical Eye on Feminine Body and Fashion ...........................................................................................88 Externalizing .................................................................................................89 Clothing Takes a Role in the Plot: Le Paletot that saved l’Odéon.......89 Sarah Bernhardt’s Engraved Belt: Containing the Truth .....................91 Critics