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University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 8907270 Out from under the artists’ brush: Aesthetics and psychoanalysis in “Manette Salomon” and “L’OEuvre” Molnar, Julie Arlene, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1988 Copyright ©1988 by Molnar, Julie Arlene. All rights reserved. UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 OUT FROM UNDER THE ARTISTS' BRUSH AESTHETICS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS IN MANETTE SALOMON AND L 'OEUVRE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Julie A. Molnar, B.A., M.A. * * * * The Ohio State University 1988 Dissertation Committee: Approved by: Charles G. S. Williams Advisor Pierre Astier Department of Romance Languages and Literatures Stephen Summerhill Lee Brown Copyright by Julie Arlene Molnar 1988 To My Mother Who Always Wanted a Doctor in the House ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation owes its success to a number of teachers and friends. The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and The Center for Comparative Studies in the Humanities enriched my academic growth. I owe a special debt to my friends, Mary Wolf and Patricia Bismuth, who kindly agreed to read my manuscript. I am sincerely grateful to my director, Charles Williams, whose critical perspective, patience, integrity and understanding of this project encouraged me to challenge myself and my ideas. To Stephen Summerhill, Pierre Astier and Lee Brown, my readers, thanks. It counts as a special favor to acknowledge David Hockenbery and my colleagues at Columbus State, who supported me through the final stages of writing. Sincere thanks to those who encouraged me: my close friends; my family; and finally, David, who does not expect thanks but deserves it. I express my gratitude to him for helping me to persevere and always think in the realm of desired outcomes and possibilities. VITA October 6, 1954 ........... Born - Youngstown, Ohio 1977 . • • .......... • • . B.A., Miami University Oxford, Ohio 1978-79 .................... Graduate Teaching Associate, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 1979 ........................ M.A., Miami University Oxford, Ohio 1981-84 .................... Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1984-87 .................... Lecturer, Center for Comparative Studies in The Humanities Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1988 ........................ Coordinator, Romance Language Program, Columbus State Community College, Columbus, Ohio FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Nineteenth Century French Literature Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ............................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................... iii VITA ................................................... iv INTRODUCTION The Male and Female Voice in Naturalism .............. 1 Notes to Introduction ................................. 29 PART I Writing the Discourse: Emile Zola and the Goncourts CHAPTER I The Goncourt Brothers and Writing: Discourse as 'Concours'............................... 34 The Eighteenth and Nineteenth-century Woman .......... 45 Languages of Exchange: Women and Jewish Men .......... 51 The Oedipal Model of the Subject ..................... 64 Notes to Chapter I .................................... 70 CHAPTER II Differences with Zola ................................. 74 Correspondance: Emile Zola and Jules de Goncourt .... 82 Gender, Genre and Naturalism ......................... 88 Emile Zola Restored .................................. 107 Notes to Chapter II .................................. 120 PART II Maiden Texts: Fiction and Sexuality CHAPTER III Manette Salomon ...................................... 126 Anatole Bazoche: Anarchy and the Play of Fiction ... 130 Writing The "Voyeur".................................. 149 Manette Salomon: 'La Juiverie' ....................... 164 Notes to Chapter III ................................. 181 v CHAPTER IV L ' OEuvre............................................... 185 Naturalism and Impressionism ........................ 189 The Model in French Fiction ......................... 208 Nature versus Culture: Barbizon and Bennecourt .... 215 Notes to Chapter IV .................................. 231 PART III Out From Under the Artists' Brush: Psychoanalysis and the Studio CHAPTER V The Body Scene ................................ 236 Canvas as Mirror: The "Mirror Stage" ............... 237 Painting Transference ............................... 246 Paranoia and The Feminine Text..... .................. 251 Narcissism and Maternity: Image Makers .............. 255 Notes to Chapter V ................................... 267 CONCLUSION ........................................... 270 Notes to Conclusion .................................. 280 WORKS CONSULTED ...................................... 281 INTRODUCTION The Male and Female Voice in Naturalist Discourse This work addresses the general question of the relationship and possibilities between the act of reading and psychoanalysis. In exploring my own practice as a reader, I have discovered a relatedness, or rather a solubility, between the nineteenth century discourse of naturalism, and contemporary discourses of feminism and psychoanalysis. The recent French interest in the study of Discourse, which I interpret as the relation between language and its referent and the polemical framework it has engendered, gives focus to and organizes my own research in naturalism. Jean Borie believes that Naturalism is the most Oedipal discourse. Claude Roy contends that "C'est dans Freud que sera formulee la cle fondamentale des Rougon-Macquart, qui n'est pas comme Zola l'avait cru, la theorie de l'heredite, mais la sublimation".1 Ferdinand de Saussure postulated that the "same" phoneme pronounced by two different people is not identical with itself. He is responsible for comprehending meaning or identity as difference, that is to say, meaning as the result, of a division. Applying this model of difference to naturalism reveals an identity best understood as difference. Specifically, this split is between feminism and psychoanalysis. Essentially, this reading of difference in discourse is one that best defines Naturalism as differing from itself. According to Roland Barthes, difference is perceived in the act of rereading, not cognition but "erotic play."2 Oedipal and feminist are terms into which we write our own story of psychoanalysis and through which we recognize our humanity. In terms of criticism, these combine to form the critical discourse, the one applied to the level of the language of Manette Salomon and L 1OEuvre. At the opposite extreme, these terms combine in the language of psychoanalytic practice as either an approach to literature or the self. The subtitle of this work, "Aesthetics and Psychoanalysis in Manette Salomon and L'OEuvre113 presupposes that literature and art may contain some knowledge or at least questions about the common ground shared by aesthetics and psychology. In setting out to explain some of the methods of literary interpretation, I have chosen these two novels which critically and clinically resemble each other. Few literary texts have provoked and drawn between them so many affinities and controversies. My first step in this same-but-different direction was guided by a model of narrative transformation based on Peter Brooks' theory of obituary: All narration is obituary in that life acquires definable meaning only at, and through, death... Walter Benjamin has claimed that life assumes • transmissible form only at the moment of death. Death-which may be figural but in the classic instances of the genre is so often literal-quickens meaning: it is the "flame," says Benjamin, at which we warm our "shivering" lives. 4 For some critics, the death of 0 came at the hands of MS. Equally quick