University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Theses, Dissertations, Student Research: Modern Languages and Literatures, Department Modern Languages and Literatures of 4-20-2009 Inscriptive Masculinity in Balzac’s Comédie Humaine Alana K. Eldrige University of Nebraska - Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/modlangdiss Part of the Modern Languages Commons Eldrige, Alana K., "Inscriptive Masculinity in Balzac’s Comédie Humaine" (2009). Theses, Dissertations, Student Research: Modern Languages and Literatures. 6. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/modlangdiss/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Modern Languages and Literatures, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses, Dissertations, Student Research: Modern Languages and Literatures by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. INSCRIPTIVE MASCULINITY IN BALZAC’S COMÉDIE HUMAINE by Alana K. Eldrige A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor in Philosophy Major: Modern Languages and Literature (French) Under the Supervision of Professor Marshall C. Olds Lincoln, Nebraska May, 2009 INSCRIPTIVE MASCULINITY IN BALZAC’S COMÉDIE HUMAINE Alana K. Eldrige, Ph.D. University of Nebraska, 2009. Adviser: Marshall C. Olds This reading of La Comédie humaine traces the narrative paradigm of the young hero within Balzac’s literary universe. A dynamic literary signifier in nineteenth-century literature, the young hero epitomizes the problematic existence encountered by the individual in post-revolutionary France. At the same time, he serves as a mouth-piece for an entire youthful generation burdened by historical memory. Left to assert his position in a society devoid of legitimate authority, the young hero seeks avenues for historical self-creation. And, at every turn, he is reminded of the illegitimacy of his own position. The historical dead-end experienced by the young hero serves therefore as a springboard upon which Balzac launches his own aesthetic enterprise. In the author’s repeated denial of the possibility for restoration, underscoring the division between past and present in the nineteenth-century historical consciousness, Balzac wishes to simulate its reconciliation through a writing of continuity. In exploring the fatal legacy of Napoleon’s self-generative imperative, Balzac reveals a lopsided vision of the young hero. Dictated by a politics of gender or the ideological softening of the masculine portrait portrayed in art and in literature, Balzac establishes a critical framework for an aesthetic reading of his disempowered or feminized young hero. His assertion of the textual model’s corrective – to posit an absolute – is revealed in the poetic enterprise of re-Creation; that is, the “creative pact,” or a poetical contract (a poésie du mal) designed to rewrite origins, and reinstate masculine authority. In pushing the dialectic for creation to its extreme, Balzac attaches a performative value to the young hero, scripting him thus as a literary signifier ordained to rival natural creation. However, the discourse of youth and the hero, emphasizing an important development in the Balzacian novel, reveals a young hero that is finally impotent. While Balzac does not give up on the potential for self-realization, the locus for recreation in post-revolutionary society is posited as exterior to France and, by extension, exterior to the French novel. iv CONTENTS Acknowledgments v List of Abbreviations vi Introduction: ix Chapter 1: Youth in Balzac’s Nineteenth Century 1 Chapter 2: Napoleon and the Legacy of his rêve fatal 52 Chapter 3: Inscriptive Masculinity 111 Chapter 4: The Creative Pact 172 Conclusion 237 Images 256 Bibliography 296 Image Bibliography 318 v Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to many individuals, whose direction and support assisted me in completing my dissertation. Special thanks go to my adviser, Professor Marshall C. Olds, for his astute critiques. Thanks also for the insightful commentaries and suggestions from the readers on my committee: Professor Thomas Carr, Professor Jordan Stump, and Professor Stephen Behrendt. I am grateful for the steady encouragement of my professors at the University of Vermont and Pacific University: Janet Whatley, Grant Crichfield, Gretchen Van Slyke, and Sara Steinert-Borella. Also, for support by members of the Department of Modern Languages at University of Nebraska–Lincoln; Love Library, especially staff members Paul Royster and Kay Walter; Rochester Public Library, for facilitating numerous interlibrary loan requests; and Wilson Library at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities Campus, for providing special lending privileges. Thanks go to: my mother, Laurie Lindquist; father, Steve Orcutt; sister, Kathleen; and brother, Loren; and to my extended family, Kathy, Steve, Kevin, Sarah, and Jessica Eldrige. I am grateful for a network of friends in Rochester, Minnesota, and elsewhere, which includes Kiersten Bretton, who watched my children so I could get my work done; and Carrie Scow. Thanks especially to my friend Aimee McClinton. Above all, I would like to thank my husband, Jason, who encouraged me and valued my studies, which provided impetus during long hours; and my sons, Ian and Alec, who supported my pursuit in their own way. vi List of Abbreviations The following list of abbreviations for La Comédie humaine are taken from the Pléiade edition, (under the direction of Pierre-Georges Castex [Paris: Gallimard, 1976-1981, 12 vols.]). For all references to La Comédie humaine, the name of the work (in its abbreviated form), the volume (in Roman numerals), and the page or pages, will be indicated unless otherwise specified. Ad. Adieu. AEF Autre étude de femme. AR L’Auberge rouge. AS Albert Savarus. Ath. La messe de l’athée. B Béatrix. Be. La Cousine Bette. Bo. La Bourse. Bou. Les Petits Bourgeois. BS Le Bal de Sceaux. CA Le Cabinet des Antiques. Cath. Sur Catherine de Médicis. CB César Birotteau. Ch. Les Chouans. Ch-O Le Chef d’oeuvre inconnu. CM Le Contrat de mariage. Col. Le Colonel Chabert. Cor. Maître Cornélius. CP Le Cousin Pons. CSS Les Comédiens sans le savoir. CT Le Curé de Tours. CV Le Curé de village. DA Le Député d’Arcis. Dés. Une passion dans le désert. DF Une double famille. DL La Duchesse de Langeais. Do. Massimilla Doni. Dr. Un Drame au bord de la mer. DV Un début dans la vie. E Les Employés. EF Etude de femme. EG Eugénie Grandet. EHC L’Envers de l’histoire contemporaine. ELV L’Elixir de longue vie. EM L’Enfant maudit. Ep.T Un épisode sous la Terreur. F Ferragus. vii FA La Femme abandonnée. FC Facino Cane. FE Une fille d’Eve. Fir. Madame Firmiani. FM La Fausse Maîtresse. F30 La Femme de trente ans. FYO La Fille aux yeux d’or. Gam. Gambara. Gau. Gaudissart II. Gb. Gobseck. Gr. La Grenadière. H Honorine. HA Un homme d’affaires. IG L’Illustre Gaudissart. In. L’Interdiction. IP Illusions perdues. JCF Jésus-Christ en Flandre. LL Louis Lambert. Lys Le Lys dans la vallée. Ma. Les Marana. MC Le Médecin de campagne. MCP La Maison du chat-qui-pelote. MD La Muse du département. Mes. Le Message. MJM Les Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées. MM Modeste Mignon. MN La Maison Nucingen. MR Melmoth reconcilié. P Pierrette. Pay. Les Paysans. PCh. La Peau de chagrin. PG Le Père Goriot. PGr. Pierre Grassou. PM La Paix du ménage. Pr.B Un prince de la Bohème. Pro. Les Proscrits. R La Rabouilleuse. RA La Recherche de l’absolu. Réq. Le Réquisitionnaire. S Sarrasine. Sér. Séraphîta. SetM Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes. SPC Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan. TA Une Ténébreuse affaire. UM Ursule Mirouët. Ve. El Verdugo. viii Ven. La Vendetta. VF La Vieille Fille. ZM Z. Marcas. Journal abbreviations AB Année Balzacienne CAI Cahiers de l’Association Internationale des Etudes Françaises CRIN Cahiers de Recherche des Instituts Néerlandais de Langue et de Littératures Françaises KFLQ Kentucky Foreign Language Quarterly MLN Modern Langugage Notes NCFS Nineteenth-century French Studies PMLA Publications of the Modern Language Association of America RHLF Revue de L’Histoire Littéraire de la France RSH Revue des Sciences Humaines ix Introduction Honoré de Balzac writes in his 1839 novel Modeste Mignon, "[. ] il ne peut y avoir rien de grand dans un siècle à qui Napoléon sert de préface," thus underscoring the problematic path awaiting men of ambition who seek greatness in the nineteenth century.1 With the exception of Balzac himself, who vowed to become the Napoléon des lettres, audaciously writing on a statuette of the Emperor kept at his writing table, "Ce qu'il a entrepris par l'épée, je l'accomplirai par la plume," the young men of La Comédie humaine dwell in the shadow of history, where they are left to reckon with its most heroic examples.2 Why this is the case is multifold. As we devise a critical framework for a discussion of Balzac’s young hero, and the importance of his role within the universe of La Comédie humaine, we consider first how the author’s literary heritage, along with the politico-historical landscape of the period, gave rise to a previously undisclosed social category of individuals referred to as France’s youth. As is evidenced by the numerous studies on the Romantic hero, the Arriviste, the Parvenu, the Dandy, the Poet, the Artist, the Anti-hero, and the blurring of these distinctions afforded by these studies, the figure of youth in the nineteenth century is a critical point of interest. 3 It has been masterfully shown by Goethe in Germany, Lord Byron in England, Walter Scott in Scotland, and by French authors such as Rousseau, Chateaubriand, Constant, Musset, Hugo, Stendhal, and Balzac, to name only a few, that the young hero is a dynamic literary signifier.