Tilger Dissertation Final
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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School Departments of French and Francophone Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies PRATIQUES D’ÉCRITURE TRANSGENRE: WRITING THE TRANSGENDER BODY IN FOUR NINETEENTH CENTURY FRENCH NOVELS A Dissertation in French and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies by Lauren Tilger © 2016 Lauren Tilger Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2016 ii The dissertation of Lauren Tilger was reviewed and approved* by the following: Bénédicte Monicat Professor of French and Women’s Studies Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Jennifer Boittin Associate Professor of French, Francophone Studies, and History Jean-Claude Vuillemin Liberal Arts Research Professor of French Maria Truglio Associate Professor of Italian and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Kathryn Grossman Professor of French Head of the Department of French and Francophone Studies *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT Instead of considering cross-dressing to be a form of masquerade, I propose that the cross-dressing protagonists of four nineteenth century French novels partake in transgender practices and incorporate masculinity into their own conceptions of self. Further, I argue that the authors themselves construct their gender-bending characters through transgender writing practices, or pratiques d’écriture transgenre. I examine how the protagonists of Clémentine, orpheline et androgyne by P. Cuisin, Gabriel by George Sand, Aline-Ali by André Léo, and Monsieur Vénus by Rachilde contribute to a reconceptualization of the biological body. Using queer theories, I build upon the notion that the physical body is not inherently sexed and that sex is just as much a social construct as gender. My nineteenth century corpus provides important tools for re-theorizing the body and creates new spaces for gender non-conforming characters to occupy. Transgender writing practices can and should transfer from the written page to lived experiences in order to reshape how societies, then and now, categorize, prioritize, and normalize individuals and their bodies. My corpus offers ways to create a more inclusive and just community so that queer and transgender individuals’ identities and bodies are no longer violated by forced gender conformity and/or harassment. When supposedly sexed bodies are accepted as socially assigned constructs, people can present themselves through self-actualized and self-determined identities. The fictional creation of my corpus’s literary characters provides for the re-imaginings of physical, nonfictional bodies. In other words, the creativity associated with literature allows us to re- conceptualize how we structure “real” life, “real” bodies, and “real” men and women. It is in part through the imaginary world—fiction—that such realization is enabled. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... vi DEFINITION OF TERMS ...................................................................................................... viii INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 1 Part One: Masculinity and Femininity in Nineteenth Century France ........................ 5 Part Two: Androgyny and Cross-dressing in French Literature and Scholarship ....... 9 Part Three: Corpus Justification .................................................................................. 18 CHAPTER ONE: Transgender Practices and the Body .......................................................... 26 Part One: Cross-dressing: From Masquerade to Transgender Practice ....................... 29 Part Two: De-sexing the Body .................................................................................... 51 Part Three: Deconstructing the Categories “Man” and “Woman” .............................. 65 CHAPTER TWO: Rewriting Traditional Gender Relationships ............................................ 73 Part One: Dynamics of the Normative Straight Couple .............................................. 73 Part Two: Friendship and Brotherhood ....................................................................... 88 Part Three: Upsetting Notions of Heterosexual Desire ............................................... 116 CHAPTER THREE: Social Critiques and Transgender Practices in Nonfiction and Autobiographical Texts of Cuisin, George Sand, André Léo, and Rachilde ............... 133 Part One: Writing as a Transgender Act ...................................................................... 136 Part Two: The Sartorial Transgender Practices of George Sand and Rachilde ........... 147 Part Three: Social Commentary of Cuisin and André Léo .......................................... 169 CHAPTER FOUR: Pratiques d’Écriture Transgenre ........................................................... 195 Part One: Writing Romans Engagés [Engaged Novels] as the “Act” In Activism ..... 200 Part Two: The Novels as Queer Texts ......................................................................... 211 v Part Three: The Novel and Transgeneric Texts ........................................................... 241 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................... 262 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................... 280 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am forever indebted to my advisor, Bénédicte Monicat, for providing unwavering support and wisdom as a mentor and professor. Words cannot adequately express how grateful I am for all of her encouragement and critical feedback over the past six years. Looking back, I marvel at Professor Monicat’s ability to steer me in the right direction when I lost my way, while empowering me to ultimately forge my own path; without her guidance, this dissertation would not exist. My warmest thanks to the other members of my committee: Professors Jennifer Boittin, Maria Truglio, and Jean-Claude Vuillemin. I have had the pleasure and privilege of benefiting not only from their comments as committee members, but also from their seminar courses that have significantly shaped me as an instructor and researcher. I would also like to thank my other professors at The Pennsylvania State University for their invaluable contributions to my academic development: Marc Authier, Vincent Bruyère, Lori Ginzberg, Norris Lacy, Joan Landes, Vera Mark, Heather McCoy, Willa Silverman, Allan Stoekl, and Monique Yaari. My fellow graduate students have made this journey even more enjoyable and their friendship and collegiality mean a great deal to me. I am grateful to have been the recipient of several grants during my time at Penn State. Receiving a dissertation-related teaching release from The Department of French and Francophone Studies spring of 2015 allowed me to focus on articulating my dissertation’s problematic, and receiving the same award the following year expedited the drafting of my dissertation. The dissertation support funding that I received during spring of 2016 from Penn State’s Research and Graduate Studies Office also contributed to the early completion of my dissertation. I have also benefited from many travel grants from The Department of French and vii Francophone Studies; thanks to this funding, I have had the opportunity to present my work at a variety of local and international conferences, receiving invaluable feedback from other scholars in my fields. I must express my thanks to Professor Cecilia Beach, who introduced me to André Léo’s novels. I am most appreciative of our discussion during the 2014 Women in French conference when she suggested that I look into cross-dressing as a possible research topic. Her advice planted a seed in my mind that has blossomed into this dissertation. I would like to thank my parents, Lynn and Stewart, and brother, Spencer, for their encouragement and humor. I am grateful for my partner, Sean Halbom, and his steadfast faith in me. I would not have been able to complete this dissertation without the support of my family, including the smallest and furriest member, the Gutter Cat. Gutters contributed to the writing of my dissertation by sitting on the keyboard, managing to type out superscript symbols that I never knew existed. If you find any strange typos in the pages that follow, I suspect she is the perpetrator. viii DEFINITION OF TERMS Androgyne [androgyne]: (noun) One exhibiting traits and characteristics of both traditional genders or of neither; of indeterminate gender or sex. Balzac’s Séraphîta from the novel of the same name is an example as this character is both masculine (Séraphitûs) and feminine (Séraphîta). Cis-gender [cis-genre]: (adjective) An individual whose gender matches his or her biological sex, as defined by traditional sex/gender binaries. In other words, a person with female genitalia who identifies as a woman. As this is the normative gender identity, many characters from nineteenth century French novels fall into this category. To name a few, Guy de Maupassant’s Georges Duroy from Bel- Ami, Sophie Cottin’s Claire d’Albe, and Alfred de Musset’s Lorenzaccio. Cross-dresser [travesti(e)]: (noun) One who wears clothes traditionally attributed as those belonging to the opposite sex. Joan of Arc is a famous historical cross- dressing figure; Théodile Gautier’s Madeleine/Théodore