Death and Desire in George Sand's Lélia

Romancing the Dead; Death and Desire in George Sand's Lélia Jacinta Wright On June 6th, 1833, George Sand published her review of Senancour's Obermann in La Revue des deux mondes. This article was later used as a preface to the 1840 Charpentier edition of Obermann. At the time, Sand herself had completed her third novel, Lélia, which began serialisation in La Revue des deux mondes in July of 1833. Sand's article on Obermann has been viewed as a privileged intertext to Lélia. Kristina Wingârd Vareille briefly refers to it as 'la véritable préface de Lélia'.' Béatrice Didier includes an article on Senancour's influence on Lélia in her 1987 edition of the novel.2 In Margaret Waller's The Male Malady, Waller opens her chapter on Lélia with a rereading of Sand's analysis of Obermann. Waller finds in the article a 'radical revision of the mal-du- sièclé' in that it formulates a textual politics of the mal-du-siècle which is specifically feminist.3 However, it is the opinion of this author that Sand's article goes even further. It outlines an extraordinary literary manifesto which merits further critical reading. It permits Sand's readers to appreciate the extent of her ambition in writing Lélia, as it delineates a literary genealogy which stretches from Homer to Shakespeare to Sand herself. Principally, however, it outlines Sand's aesthetic of the poetic exploration of human psychology through literature. This study is a reading of Sand's inscription of a troublesome sexual desire in Lélia, which is consistently linked to the valorisation of death and suffering in the text. Such a reading is necessarily informed by a reflection on Sand's preface to Obermann. In this preface, Sand calls for new literary forms which will depict the disorderly desires of her generation. She makes a typology of desire as it is described in various literary works, and she relates the depiction of desire to the literary worth of these works. In 1839, Sand rewrote 1. Wingârd Vareille, Kristina, Socialite, sexualité et les impasses de l'histoire (Uppsala; Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1987), p. 147. 2. Sand, George, Lélia, édition établie et présentée par Béatrice Didier (Meylan, Les Editions de l'Aurore, 1987). 3. Waller, Margaret, The Male Malady: Fictions of Impotence in the French Romantic Novel (New Jersey, Rutgers University Press, 1993), p. 139. 58 WRIGHT Lélia, this time expunging the controversial references to Lélia's sexual impotence. In this study of Sand's eroticisation of death and despair, all references are to the better-known edition of 1833, in which Lélia suffers from sexual impotence brought on by metaphysical suffering. This edition foregrounds the problematic of the heroine's struggle with desire and its fulfillment. Sand begins her article on Obermann with a dismissal of epic, dramatic and melodramatic literature. She contrasts these genres with that of the interiorised, confessional and psychological fiction. The former will attract the interest of the vast majority of readers. The latter works, however, are more important and more precious, as they describe the sufferings of the human soul detached from the chaos of historical event. Sand reads these works as anatomies of the human psyche; they are more revealing in psychological terms than history itself; they can teach us about the evolution of human psychology through the centuries: [...] les poèmes les plus importants et les plus précieux sont ceux qui nous révèlent les intimes souffrances de l'âme humaine dégagées de l'éclat et de la variété des événements extérieurs. Ces rares et austères productions ont peut-être une importance plus grande que les faits mêmes de l'histoire pour l'étude de la psychologie au travers du mouvement des siècles ; car elles pourraient, en nous éclairant sur l'état moral et intellectuel des peuples aux divers âges de la civilisation, donner la clef des grands événements qui sont encore proposés pour énigmes aux érudits de notre temps. (QAL 49)4 Sand concludes this reflection by declaring that the true worth of Senancour's Obermann lies in its psychological element, and that critical approaches to the text must always take this account: ia plus haute et la plus durable valeur de ce livre consiste dans la donnée psychologique, et c'est principalement sous ce point de vue qu'il doit être examiné et interrogé' (QAL 50). Sand continues by defining what she means by the psychological content of a text. For her, this lies in the depiction of moral suffering ('la souffrance morale' - QAL 50) and in the description of its causes, foremost among which is the problem of unfulfilled desire. Sand proceeds to situate Obermann in a literary genealogy which begins with Homer's Iliad (QAL 50) and includes 4. Bessis, Henrietta & Glasgow, Janis (eds.), Questions d'art et de littérature (Paris, Des femmes, 1991). DEATH AND DESIRE IN LELIA 59 Shakespeare's Hamlet (QAL 55), Byron's poetry (including Childe Harold, Lara, The Corsair and Manfred, QAL 52-3), Goethe's Faust (QAL 52) and The Sorrows of Young Werther (QAL 50), and Chateaubriand's René (QAL 50) and Atala (QAL 52). As Sand defines it, each of these authors has inscribed a different form of the frustration of desire. Werther experiences frustrated passion, René, the awareness of superior qualities without the will to realise them, Obermann, the clear realisation of his own inadequacy. Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther can be compared to Homer's Iliad in that the depiction of frustrated love is a classical form of the depiction of desire. However, Sand claims that the advance of history has produced more sophisticated literary forms, including René and Obermann. Of these, Sand states that Obermann is the most original, because of its depiction of impotent desire. For Sand, this malady has become widespread, and has afflicted her generation ('beaucoup d'entre nous en [ont] été frappés' - QAL 64). She defines this form of impotence as follows: 'la souffrance de la volupté dépourvue de puissance' (QAL 64). She states that the pervasive nature of this illness must inevitably give rise to new literary forms: 'L'invasion de ces maladies a dû introduire le germe d'une poésie nouvelle' (QAL 63). Although, according to Sand, this affliction is widespread, no one has yet dared to write about it; perhaps because only a great artist can treat of it in a truly poetic way: 'C'est une maladie plus répandue que les autres, mais que nul n'a encore osé traiter. Pour la revêtir de grâce et de poésie, il faudra une main habile et une science consommée' (QAL 66). Sand's preface to Obermann reveals the ambition of her intent in writing Lélia. Waller argues that this preface lays claim to a feminine and feminist specificity of Sand's mal-du-siècle. It is certainly true that Lélia, as a woman, is a radically new figure in the canon of mal-du- siècle protagonists. However, it would appear that in Lélia, Sand is attempting nothing less than an anatomy of desire, and the human suffering which accompanies it. In her article, Sand predicts that the 5. Perhaps the best-known incident which followed the book's critical reception was Planche's challenge to Capo de Feuillade after the latter's damning article in L'Europe littéraire on the 9th and 22nd of August, 1833. A duel ensued in August, 1833 (see 'Accueil de Lélia en 1833', in Sand, George, Lélia, édition établie et présentée par Pierre Reboul - Paris, Garnier, 1960). In March, 1834, Sand wrote that the attacks against the author oî Lélia were becoming so personal, and so offensive, that she felt that it was necessary to make a public response (QAL 70). 6. Sand, George, Correspondance (Paris, Garnier frères, 1964. Vol. 1, Tome II). 7. Redoul, op. cit., p. 587. 60 WRIGHT first attempts to undertake such a literary project would be repudiated and misunderstood; this was certainly the case with Lélia. The novel was met with an outraged critical response.5 It also met with high praise; Chateaubriand wrote to Sand declaring that she would live to become 'Le Lord Byron de la France' (COR 401).6 In an article published in La Revue des deux mondes, Gustave Planche compared Lélia to Byron's Manfred.1 Alfred de Musset compared it to Chateaubriand's René, and to Byron's Lara (COR 368). Therefore, on its publication, Lélia was received into the same mal-du-siècle canon outlined by Sand in her article on Obermann. It remains to study the depiction of desire in Lélia, guided by the aesthetic of reading outlined by Sand in her article on Obermann. Sand has charted the sources and dissatisfactions of desire in Goethe, Chateaubriand, Senancour and others; we may then ask how these works compare with Lélia, and if there is an economy of desire which is particular to Sand. It is clear that Lélia articulates the problematic of unfulfilled sexual desire as a source of psychological suffering. This suffering is as limitless as desire itself. Béatrice Didier summarises the problem as follows: Le drame de Lélia ne consiste pas exactement à ne pas savoir jouir, mais à avoir désiré intensément et à souffrir d'un décalage entre l'immensité du désir et les limites de la jouissance. L'opposition jouir-désirer risque d'entraîner un déplacement du lieu du désir. Le corps est le lieu de la jouissance ; mais celui du désir, c'est l'esprit, l'intelligence et l'âme.8 Physical desire must remain unfulfilled in Lélia because the body is figured as an inadequate vehicle for the experience of pleasure.

Load more