DOCSLIB.ORG

Copyright by Courtney Ann Sullivan 2003

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Copyright by Courtney Ann Sullivan 2003 Copyright by Courtney Ann Sullivan 2003 The Dissertation Committee for Courtney Ann Sullivan certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Classification, Containment, Contamination, and the Courtesan: The Grisette, Lorette, and Demi-Mondaine in Nineteenth-Century French Fiction Committee: Alexandra K. Wettlaufer, Supervisor Mary Baker Carol MacKay Dina Sherzer Hal Wylie Classification, Containment, Contamination, and the Courtesan: The Grisette, Lorette, and Demi-Mondaine in Nineteenth-Century French Fiction by Courtney Ann Sullivan, B.A., M.A., 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 May, 2003 Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to Roger Ricondo and to my parents; I am eternally grateful to them for their love, support, and encouragement. Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Dr. Alexandra K. Wettlaufer for her help and guidance in the preparation of this dissertation. She is truly an inspiration and pushed me achieve more than I thought possible. v Classification, Containment, Contamination, and the Courtesan: The Grisette, Lorette, and Demi-Mondaine in Nineteenth-Century French Fiction Publication No._____________ Courtney Ann Sullivan, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2003 Supervisor: Alexandra K. Wettlaufer This dissertation presents an analysis of the demi-mondaine’s evolution, using feminist and Bourdieusian theory to interpret the social, political, and cultural factors that permitted her ascent and attendant demonization. I situate the demi-mondaine in relation to her predecessors -- the courtesan and the lorette -- and document the prostitute's response to her own social alienation in the autobiographical writings of the Second Empire attributed to demi-mondaines like Lola Montès, Céleste de Chabrillan, and Marguerite Bellanger in a way that has not previously been described in critical works on French literature. Each period examined in the work -- the July Monarchy, the Second Republic, and the Second Empire -- spawned a new incarnation of the prostitute to match the new social transformations. In the case of the lorette and the demi-mondaine, new words were coined, whereas in the case of the courtesan, a line was drawn separating the idealized ancient courtesan from the demonized contemporary one to solidify and correspond to male fantasies about significant changes of the period. My purpose vi is to trace the way writers such as Hugo, Dumas, Balzac, Sue, the Goncourt brothers, Flaubert, Dumas fils, and Zola employed the figure of the prostitute to work through their ambivalence to changes brought about by capitalism, modernity, revolution, as well as evolving gender roles. Specifically, these writers played out their distress through the figure of the lorette, courtisane, and demi-mondaine in an effort to assuage their anxieties through the containment of these unruly figures. Hence, these authors generated a complex system of social classification ranking prostitute to give the illusion of both controlling her and mastering these overwhelming forces of change. This illusion of control takes the form of scapegoating the prostitute, for if her lawlessness is eradicated through her destruction, containment or punishment in the narratives, then the actions of the marginalized prostitute are kept in check, thereby reestablishing a sense of order. Textual analyses of the memoirs written by demi- mondaines, the plays, the physiologies, the caricatures, and the political pamphlets I found in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand complement the canonical works I examine. vii Table of Contents List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................................................... ....xii Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One: Classifications and Containment: Social Hierarchies and the Harlot............................................................................................................ 36 Why social hierarchies exist: Bourdieu's Distinction................................... 36 Domination and differentiation.................................................................... 39 "Surveillance and Control": Foucault dissects discipline ............................ 41 "Les prostituées sont pour la plupart de véritables enfants": Parent's paternalism and the containment project............................................. 44 "J'ai dû appeler les choses par leur nom”: The key role the power to name plays in Parent’s containment project........................................ 47 “Elles ont le sentiment de leur abjection”: The Prostitute’s fantasized subjection to male mastery.................................................................. 50 “Necessité de distinguer les prostituées en classes et en catégories ............ 52 “Homme exempt de préjugés”: Parent claims to forsake fiction for science……………………………………………………………… . 55 “Les égoûts où elles exercent”: Sewers and sickness in Dumas and Parent................................................................................................... 58 “Filles, lorettes et courtisanes”: Dumas continues Parent’s containment project.................................................................................................. 61 “Les pages suivantes ne sont point écrites pour les demoiselles qui sortent du couvent”: Dumas and the fiction factor.............................. 62 The Male gaze and female agency............................................................... 65 The Prostitute and fears of female subjectivity: The first rumblings of emancipation?...................................................................................... 68 “La prostituée reparut sous une autre forme, avec un autre costume […] avec un autre tournure”: The Prostitute as menacing figure of social mobility..................................................................................... 69 “La fille publique symbolise encore le désordre, l’excès et l’imprévoyance”: The Prostitute and the revolution........................... 74 viii “On voulait la connaître pour la combattre, l’étudier pour se défendre:” Defusing the threat of the Lorette ....................................................... 75 The Lorette at Carnaval: Fears of mobility and modernity......................... 77 Theorizing patterns of demonization and seduction.................................... 79 Conclusion.................................................................................................... 82 Chapter Two: The Lorette as the Ambivalent Figure of Modernity.......................... 84 Introduction.................................................................................................. 84 “Jenny était soumise á l’artiste:” The Grisette and fantasized female docility................................................................................................. 88 The Grisette’s ties to gender politics and capitalism................................... 92 “J’ai entendu dire que les femmes ne devaient pas se mêler de politique”: Feminist politics and the grisette..................................... 95 The “préoccupations du moment” which shape the depictions of the Lorette................................................................................................. 99 “La lorette avec aieux achète chez ancêtres chez les marchands de bric à brac”: Questions of class legitimacy................................................ 102 Social bobility and the Lorette................................................................... 107 Seduction and the stock market.................................................................. 109 Resentment of the ever-growing spirit of capitalism................................. 112 Carnival...................................................................................................... 113 Apprehensions About Technology............................................................. 121 Part 2: The Demise of the Lorette.............................................................. 124 “Une Lorette est plus amusante que la Vénus de Milo:” De-idealizing the Lorette in L’Éducation sentimentale........................................... 125 The Lorette’s Ties to capitalism and social collapse.................................. 128 “L’impossibilité de l’amitié des femmes:” Why Flaubert undermines female solidarity................................................................................ 132 The Derision of feminism and female presence in the political arena....... 136 The Gender-bending Lorette as castrator................................................... 142 “Essayons, dans ce récit, de cautériser la plaie”: The Goncourt and Eugène Sue’s battle against the Lorette’s contagion......................... 143 ix The Devil vs. the Lorette............................................................................ 149 “La fièvre d’or:” The Lorette and Capitalism’s Contagiousness .............. 153 Chapter Three: The Demonic Angel: Re - inventing the Courtesan in the July Monarchy ..................................................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Story of a White Blackbird Alfred De Musset
    The Story of a White Blackbird Alfred de Musset The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol. XIII, Part 3. Selected by Charles William Eliot Copyright © 2001 Bartleby.com, Inc. Bibliographic Record Contents Biographical Note Criticism and Interpretation By George Pellissier Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter XI Biographical Note LOUIS CHARLES ALFRED DE MUSSET was born in the heart of old Paris on November 11, 1810. His father, who held various important state offices, is remembered chiefly as the editor and biographer of Rousseau. Alfred was brought up in a literary atmosphere and his early experiments in poetry and the drama convinced Sainte Beuve that he possessed genius. When he was nineteen his “Contes d’Espagne et d’Italie” had a sensational success. Though he is reckoned a member of the romantic school, he was sufficiently detached and critical to be aware of its foibles, and in his “Ballade à la lune,” contained in this first volume, he poked fun at the romantic worship of the moon, comparing it as it shone above a steeple to the dot over an i. He had a strong admiration for certain elements in classicism, and it seemed at one time that he might found a new school combining the virtues of both the old and new. But his drama, “Une nuit vénitienne,” was a failure on the stage, and in the future he wrote only to be read and so missed much of the influence he might have had on the theatre of his day.
    [Show full text]
  • MODELING HEROINES from GIACAMO PUCCINI's OPERAS by Shinobu Yoshida a Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requ
    MODELING HEROINES FROM GIACAMO PUCCINI’S OPERAS by Shinobu Yoshida A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Music: Musicology) in The University of Michigan 2011 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Naomi A. André, Co-Chair Associate Professor Jason Duane Geary, Co-Chair Associate Professor Mark Allan Clague Assistant Professor Victor Román Mendoza © Shinobu Yoshida All rights reserved 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ...........................................................................................................iii LIST OF APPENDECES................................................................................................... iv I. CHAPTER ONE........................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION: PUCCINI, MUSICOLOGY, AND FEMINIST THEORY II. CHAPTER TWO....................................................................................................... 34 MIMÌ AS THE SENTIMENTAL HEROINE III. CHAPTER THREE ................................................................................................. 70 TURANDOT AS FEMME FATALE IV. CHAPTER FOUR ................................................................................................. 112 MINNIE AS NEW WOMAN V. CHAPTER FIVE..................................................................................................... 157 CONCLUSION APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………….162 BIBLIOGRAPHY..........................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Under the July Monarchy (1830-1848)
    REPRESENTATIONS OF “LE TRAVAIL” UNDER THE JULY MONARCHY (1830-1848) by Rebecca Terese Powers A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland July, 2015 Representations of le travail under the July Monarchy ABSTRACT This project traces the definition of a social reality of labor under the July Monarchy. More specifically, it investigates how the ubiquitous but elusive term travail – understood as manual, non-agricultural work – operates at different levels of discourse in the 1830s and 1840s. To underline this specific cultural context, I employ the French travail rather than the English “work” or “labor.” French workers expected improved social conditions after their contribution to the 1830 Revolution, but were promptly denied this by the new Constitutional Monarchy. Their frustration came to a head in 1848, when they again revolted, demanding the right to work – le droit au travail. This moment is often considered the dawn of the French labor movement, but I contend that it is in the years leading up to 1848 that travail undergoes its most dramatic definition and consecration as a modern value. In order to better understand how the term took on such significance, I examine a variety of cultural documents, both literary and what we would today consider paraliterary. The corpus includes novels by Honoré de Balzac and George Sand; moralist inquiries by René Villermé and Honoré-Antoine Frégier; Jules Michelet’s historiography of the French people; and writings by the workers themselves, whose first-hand accounts of physical labor were becoming increasingly influential.
    [Show full text]
  • Huart, Physiologie De La Grisette Summer 18
    Physiologie de la Grisette1 by Louis Huart Chapitre II : Où l’auteur aborde franchement son sujet. Ce n’est pas d’aujourd’hui que les grisettes ont été appréciées, courtisées et physiologiées.2 Il y a deux cents ans qu’un de nos plus grands poètes leur a consacré les vers suivants, qui, pour être de l’époque de Louis XIV, ne sont pas déjà trop rococos: Une grisette est un trésor, Et, sans se donner de la peine, Et sans qu’au bal on la promène, On en vient aisément à bout ; On lui dit ce qu’on veut, bien souvent rien du tout : La peine est d’en trouver une qui soit fidèle3. La grisette de notre époque a bien quelque ressemblance avec celle du bon La Fontaine. C’est toujours un trésor, si vous voulez ; mais il faut la faire danser beaucoup et souvent : autrement, pas d’affaires, vous n’en viendrez jamais à bout. On lui dit toujours ce qu’on veut; elle y croit toujours. Quant à la fidélité, elle en a tout autant que certaines grandes dames, ne vous en déplaise. Il en est de la grisette comme d’une foule d’excellentes choses qui s’en vont ; et pour peu que nous allions quelque temps encore, nous n’aurons bientôt plus rien de bon. La grisette, la véritable et non contrefaite, est une jeune fille de seize à trente ans qui travaille, coud ou brode 1 For an explanation of the term “grisette,” see introduction to Paul de Kock’s “Un Bal des grisettes” in this volume.
    [Show full text]
  • La Grisette Dans Les Romans Et Les Physiologies (1825-1850) : Une Incarnation De Paris
    LA GRISETTE DANS LES ROMANS ET LES PHYSIOLOGIES (1825-1850) : UNE INCARNATION DE PARIS. NUANCES ET AMBIGUÏTÉS D’UN STÉRÉOTYPE Qui ne connaît la grisette, ne se rappelle croquis, lithographies et chansons, de Monnier et Gavarni à Béranger et Puccini1 ? Laissons ses amours faciles : « Quoi ! si tôt avoir cédé, dira-t-on », et elle « était novice et sage ? oui, et pourquoi donc différer ; un peu plus tôt, un peu plus tard, ne faut-il pas toujours en venir là? » écrit Maximilien Perrin2. Phémie, Musette et Mimi sont aussi vives chez H. Murger (Scènes de la vie de bohème). Déjà pour Béranger3 cette attitude volage, discrète ou agressive, est la marque des grisettes (mais aussi des ouvrières ou des demoiselles de boutique4) qui en outre se consolent facilement. Mais il est parfois des liaisons durables, et d’autre part Rigolette (Les Mystères de Paris), Nichette, l’héroïne d’Antonine de Dumas fils5, éprouveront un amour sérieux, d’autres aussi6. Certaines se tuent, incapables de vivre sans l’être aimé. Les Physiologies constatent le fait avec une sorte de fatalisme teinté d’ironie. Balzac et Musset sont vraiment émus par la fin d’Ida Gruget (Ferragus) ou de Bernerettte. Les grisettes ne vivent pas de leurs charmes, elles travaillent : elles ne sont pas des lorettes (mais elles peuvent le devenir)7. Pourtant Dumas fils nomme « courtisane » la Bernerette de Musset8, fort oisive, il est vrai. Les frontières se brouillent parfois : il y a dans l’amour de ces demoiselles de l’opportunisme, un peu de vénalité9. La plupart guigne le superflu, certaines sont près de demander le nécessaire, parfois tout le nécessaire.
    [Show full text]
  • THE MERRY WIDOW Music by Franz Lehar English Dialogue by Gershom Clark Morningstar Lyrics by Adrian Ross and Ronald Orenstein
    THE MERRY WIDOW Music by Franz Lehar English Dialogue by Gershom Clark Morningstar Lyrics by Adrian Ross and Ronald Orenstein FEATURES OF THIS SHOW The Merry Widow was a major hit in the United States, two years after it opened in Vienna. It boasted an English translation by Adrian Ross, a major lyricist in England. Although other librettos have been written for it since, Ross’s lyrics hold up very well, when modified for modern audiences. They convey the language that marks the period that is so important for the style of the show. Gershom Morningstar was commissioned by the Guild to rework the dialog, which was the show's weakest feature. New elements were added for plot depth and to increase the humor Obviously a star vehicle for a soprano as the Widow, the tenor De Rosillon and the soprano Valencienne have glorious duet material. The role of Danilo is one of the few chances for a baritone to be the romantic lead. The character moving the plot is Baron Zeta, who may be primarily an actor, as he sings little. There are good opportunities for supporting characters as well. CAST REQUIREMENTS Widow Hanna Glavari, soprano Marquis Cascada, baritone Count Danilo Danilovitch, baritone M. St. Brioche, a dandy, tenor Baron Mirko Zeta, actor General Cromov, actor, chorus Betush, his secretary, male or female actor Olga, his wife, actor, chorus Valencienne, his wife, soprano General Bogdanovitch, actor, chorus Camille, her lover, tenor Sylvaine, his wife, actor, chorus Zozo, the lead grisette, mezzo-soprano Praskovia Pritschitz, actor, chorus Six Grizettes, dancers Folk dancers, act 2 Chorus of embassy officials and their wives MUSICAL NUMBERS Overture........................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • 2018 Lotte Lenya Competition Finals
    20TH ANNIVERSARY Finalists from the 2017 Competition 2018 LOTTE LENYA COMPETITION FINALS Daytime Round Kilbourn Hall, Eastman School of Music Saturday, 14 April 2018, 11:00 am Each finalist will have fifteen minutes to present a program of four contrasting selections. 12:45 Benjamin Pattison, 27 To ensure that each contestant has the opportunity to sing his/her entire program, please “The Rain Song” from 110 in the Shade Schmidt/Jones withhold applause until the conclusion of each contestant’s final selection.For the “And where is the one who will mourn me when I’m gone?” daytime round, accompanists Lyndon Meyer and Shane Schag will alternate. from Down in the Valley Weill/Sundgaard “Una furtiva lagrima” from L’elisir d’amore Donizetti/Romani 11:00 John Tibbetts, 27 “If I Sing” from Closer Than Ever Shire/Maltby “This is New” from Lady in the Dark Weill/Gershwin “In Praise of Women” from A Little Night Music Sondheim -INTERMISSION- “Lieben, Hassen, Hoffen, Zagen” from Ariadne auf Naxos Strauss/von Hofmannsthal 2:00 Philip Stoddard, 26 “This is the Life” from Love Life Weill/Lerner “Or vi dirò...” from La bohème Puccini/Illica, Giacosa “Daybreak” from Floyd Collins Guettel 11:15 Andrea Lett, 27 “Ballade vom angenehmen Leben” “Youkali” Weill/Fernay from Die Dreigroschenoper Weill/Brecht “Vanilla Ice Cream” from She Loves Me Bock/Harnick “Joey, Joey, Joey” from The Most Happy Fella Loesser “Perfect” from Edges Pasek, Paul “Chacun le sait” from La fille du régiment Donizetti/Saint-Georges, Bayard 2:15 Christine Amon, 31 “Mister Snow” from
    [Show full text]
  • Dossier Artistique La Dame Aux Camélias Alexandre Dumas Fils Arthur Nauzyciel
    DOSSIER ARTISTIQUE LA DAME AUX CAMÉLIAS ALEXANDRE DUMAS FILS ARTHUR NAUZYCIEL Théâtre National de Bretagne Direction Arthur Nauzyciel 1, rue Saint-Hélier 35000 Rennes T-N-B.fr TOURNÉE 2018 – 2019 Rennes, Théâtre National de Bretagne 26 09 – 05 10 2018 Les Gémeaux, Scène Nationale de Sceaux 11 10 – 21 10 2018 La Comédie de Valence – CDN Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne 28 11 13 03 – 29 11 2018 – 15 03 2019 La Comédie de Reims – CDN Comédie de Caen – CDN 04 12 20 03 – 05 12 2018 – 21 03 2019 La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand, Scène Théâtre National de Strasbourg nationale 28 03 11 12 – 04 04 2019 – 13 12 2018 Nouvelle scène nationale de Cergy-Pontoise Le Parvis – Scène Nationale Tarbes-Pyrénées et du Val d’Oise 16 01 18 04 – 17 01 2019 – 19 04 2019 Lyon, Théâtre des Célestins TANDEM, Scène nationale Arras-Douai 22 01 10 05 – 25 01 2019 – 11 05 2018 Théâtre National de Nice La Criée – Théâtre National de Marseille 31 01 17 05 – 01 02 2019 – 18 05 2019 Durée estimée 2h45 Déconseillé aux moins de 16 ans M.Duval PIERRE BAUX Nanine OCÉANE CAÏRATY Le Docteur / Olympe PASCAL CERVO Arthur de Varville GUILLAUME COSTANZA Marguerite Gautier MARIE-SOPHIE FERDANE Gaston Rieux MOUNIR MARGOUM © Meryl Meisler / Steven Kasher Gallery © Meryl Meisler / Steven Prudence Duvernoy JOANA PREISS Armand Duval HEDI ZADA D'après le roman et la pièce de théâtre La Dame aux camélias de ALEXANDRE DUMAS FILS Adaptation VALÉRIE MRÉJEN ARTHUR NAUZYCIEL Mise en scène ARTHUR NAUZYCIEL Assistant à la mise en scène JULIEN DERIVAZ Scénographie RICCARDO HERNANDEZ Spectacle créé du 26 septembre au 5 octobre Lumière 2018 au Théâtre National de Bretagne.
    [Show full text]
  • Arts Event Discovery Packet for La Bohème!
    Welcome to Pittsburgh Opera’s Arts Event Discovery Packet for La bohème! Activities and lesson suggestions are designed to supplement an excursion to the opera. Attending a student matinee can be a rich artistic experience—full of meaningful connections between real-life learning and academic skills. The contents of this packet address all Pennsylvania Academic Standards to enhance existing curricula, to create a real-life environment for learning, and to provide engaging opportunities for active involvement—before, during, and after the event. Look through the packet to discover strategies that apply to your classroom. Enjoy your trip and your discoveries about the opera! ___________________________________________________________________ Safety First! Pittsburgh Opera creates new stage sets or sections of scenery. The sets then need to be transported and installed, first in a rehearsal area, then on the stage of the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts. After an opera has run all scheduled performances, the set must be removed from the stage and stored, or shipped to another city for use by another opera company. • Develop a safety checklist for the people involved in each phase of the set building, installation, and removal process. Include artists, carpenters, electricians, truck drivers, and stagehands. What other people may be involved? Your list may include the following items: o Tools/Equipment Needed o Safety Procedures—Before, During and After Production • Consider the laws and regulations in effect to protect workers. Check the website of the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) for some ideas about preventing and eliminating hazards in the workplace. • Organize your workflow by assigning specific tasks to the professionals on your list.
    [Show full text]
  • Manet's Olympia: the Figuration of Scandal Author(S): Charles Bernheimer Source: Poetics Today, Vol
    Manet's Olympia: The Figuration of Scandal Author(s): Charles Bernheimer Source: Poetics Today, Vol. 10, No. 2, Art and Literature II (Summer, 1989), pp. 255-277 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1773024 Accessed: 17/09/2010 08:19 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=duke. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Duke University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Poetics Today. http://www.jstor.org Manet's Olympia: The Figuration of Scandal Charles Bernheimer Romance Languages and Comparative Literature, Pennsylvania The woman, I look at her, I examine her.
    [Show full text]
  • Desire, Fantasy, and the Writing of Lesbos-Sur-Seine, 1880-1939 By
    Desire, Fantasy, and the Writing of Lesbos-sur-Seine, 1880-1939 by Lowry Gene Martin, II A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in French And the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Michael Lucey, Chair Professor Ann Smock Professor Barbara Spackman Professor Charis Thompson Fall 2010 1 Abstract Desire, Fantasy, and the Writing of Lesbos-sur-Seine, 1880-1939 by Lowry Gene Martin, II Doctor of Philosophy in French University of California, Berkeley Professor Michael Lucey, Chair My dissertation challenges a commonly accepted view that literary representations of lesbianism were merely a momentary fashion, linked to Symbolist and Decadent movements in literature. More than a trope for artistic sterility, the explosion of Sapphic representation emblematized the social fractures prevalent during the Third Republic. This dissertation illustrates that “Sapphism”—in literature and beyond—became a type of shorthand to discuss everything from declining natality to changing gender roles, from military fears to urban space to the nature of artistic production. Using legal, racial and other social discourses to provide different kinds of contextualization, my readings of such canonical authors as Zola, Proust, and Colette reveal how lesbian depictions were not merely about sexuality or art but addressed a host of social and political anxieties. Beginning with an analysis of censorship of lesbian themed novels between 1885 and 1895, I demonstrate the randomness of censorship and its failure to stem the growing number of lesbian depictions. This chapter is followed by an investigation of the role of racial and ethnic othering of the lesbian in French literature as a means to discuss French fears of contamination from its colonies and perceived threats from other world powers.
    [Show full text]
  • A Much Loved Opera: La Bohème
    A MUCH LOVED OPERA: LA BOHÈME Presented by George Kurti Plohn The title of this opera is not meant to be translated, we simply call it by its French name La bohème. Granted, in English it would be The bohemian. But what is its meaning? In our context, certainly it is not about somebody in the region of Bohemia, in the Czech Republic - I hasten to say - but rather people who practice an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, and practicing free love. It involves musical, artistic, literary or spiritual pursuits. Puccini, the composer of La bohème, in his own private life was also a sort of bohemian himself. In his twenties, he went to Milan from his hometown, Lucca, and he studied hard there, while he was penniless and hungry most of the time. And he was also a great womanizer, which reached its highest point in the autumn of 1884, when at 36, he began a relationship with a 24 year old married woman named Elvira Gemignani. Elvira's husband, Narciso Gemignani, was himself an unrepentant philanderer, and Elvira's marriage was not a happy one. Elvira became pregnant by Puccini, and a son, Antonio, resulted from this affair. Elvira, Antonio and Elvira's daughter by Narciso, Fosca, began to live with Puccini shortly afterwards, when Narciso was killed by the husband of a woman that Narciso had an affair with. Only then, in early 1904, were Puccini and Elvira able to marry, and to legitimize Antonio. But the marriage between Puccini and Elvira was also troubled by infidelity, as Puccini had frequent parallel affairs himself, including with well-known singers such as the famous Austrian soprano Maria Jeritza, the Czech operatic legend Emmy Destinn, the Italian soprano Cesira Ferrani who was to sing Mimi’s role in La bohème at its premiere, and the outstanding Romanian-born soprano Hariclea Darclée.
    [Show full text]