The Making and Unmaking of Colette: Myth, Celebrity, Profession by Kathleen Antonioli Department of Romance Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Toril Moi, Supervisor ___________________________ David F. Bell ___________________________ Anne F. Garréta ___________________________ Helen Solterer ___________________________ Patricia Tilburg Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 ABSTRACT The Making and Unmaking of Colette: Myth, Celebrity, Profession by Kathleen Antonioli Department of Romance Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Toril Moi, Supervisor ___________________________ David F. Bell ___________________________ Anne F. Garréta ___________________________ Helen Solterer ___________________________ Patricia Tilburg An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 Copyright by Kathleen Antonioli 2011 Abstract This dissertation takes the paradoxical role of Colette in the canon of French and womenřs writing, from her earliest works to present, as an entry into a radically new interpretation of her life and literary oeuvre. This work is distinguished from previous works on Colette both in its approach and in the scope of its research, relying on extensive archival research revealing unpublished and unstudied aspects of Coletteřs biography and reception, and using a variety of modes of analysis to interpret this research. This dissertation shows, in its first two chapters, how the myth of Colette as the incarnation of a particularly French brand of femininity, a spontaneous, natural writer, in no way literarily self-conscious, neither contributing to nor influenced by literary innovations, whose writing expresses her instinctive femininity, was constituted, from the earliest reviews of Coletteřs first novel, Claudine à l’école (1900), through feminist interpretations of Colette from the 1970s to present. Because Colette was understood to be a feminine writer of women by both misogynist conservatives of 1900 and radical feminists of the 1970řs, their understanding of this writer remained remarkably homogenous and durable. The third chapter relies on contemporary celebrity theory in order to investigate Coletteřs own agency in the creation and policing of this durable public image, tracing both ways that Colette maintained her image, and ways that she profited from it, focusing in particular on her eponymous literary collection, the Collection Colette, and her Ŗproduits de beautéŗ cosmetics line and a beauty salon. This understanding of Coletteřs agential role in her public image inspires a new reading of the iv 1910 novel La Vagabonde and the relationship Colette depicts between the protagonist, Renée Néréřs stage persona and her life when she is not in front of an audience. The next two chapters suggest new ways of approaching Colette, beyond the durable myth of the spontaneous feminine writer that she worked so hard to maintain: as a consummate professional and as a literary innovator. The fourth chapter focuses on Coletteřs professionalism: using a Bourdieu-inspired analysis of Coletteřs correspondence to uncover her role in the literary field, tracing the full extent of her social, artistic, and professional networks with other writers, journalists, and artists. This chapter then explores concrete examples of her manipulation of these networks, studying in particular her collaboration with Maurice Ravel in L’Enfant et les sortilèges and her management of the literary department at the newspaper Le Matin. The final chapter of this dissertation reads Colette in terms of discourses of modernism, from which she has long been excluded due to her imagined marginality to the literary field, focusing in particular on French conceptions of the harmonious reconciliation of classicism and literary innovation which reached their height in the 1920řs, and which I have termed the Ŗclassique moderne.ŗ This dissertation makes a contribution to trends in French literature, literary history, the sociology of literature, womenřs studies, womenřs history, feminist literary criticism, and celebrity theory. v Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. ix Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................... x Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Literary History ...................................................................................................................... 3 Biography ................................................................................................................................ 9 Bourdieu, the Literary Field, and Profession .................................................................... 10 Celebrity ................................................................................................................................. 20 Recent Works on Colette ..................................................................................................... 23 Chapter Overview ................................................................................................................ 24 Chapter 1: The Feminine Writer: The Reception of Colette 1900-1928 ....................................... 27 Claudine’s Autobiography .................................................................................................. 30 Claudine and Femininity ..................................................................................................... 33 Praise for Claudine ............................................................................................................... 36 Claudine’s Morality.............................................................................................................. 39 Claudine’s Style .................................................................................................................... 41 Rachilde ................................................................................................................................. 42 After Claudine: Colette’s Autobiography ......................................................................... 45 Colette’s Femininity ............................................................................................................. 48 Praise for Colette .................................................................................................................. 52 Colette’s Morality ................................................................................................................. 57 Colette’s Style ........................................................................................................................ 61 Critical Outliers: Apollinaire and Others .......................................................................... 63 vi Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 72 Chapter 2: Colette from Antifeminist to Feminist (1910-2010) .................................................... 74 The Antifeminist ................................................................................................................... 76 Feminist Beginnings: A False Start ..................................................................................... 85 Toward Liberation: Colette and Beauvoir......................................................................... 88 A Feminist Heroine .............................................................................................................. 95 Academic Appropriations ................................................................................................. 106 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 114 Chapter 3: Cultivating Claudine: Coletteřs Maintenance and Use of Renown ............................ 116 La Vagabonde and Celebrity Theory .................................................................................. 119 Claudine ............................................................................................................................... 126 Beyond Claudine ................................................................................................................ 133 The Collection Colette ........................................................................................................ 140 Other Products .................................................................................................................... 149 Colette’s “Produits de beauté” ......................................................................................... 153 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................