Universiteit Gent Academiejaar 2005 Women’s Passages: A Bildungsroman of Female Flânerie Verhandeling voorgelegd aan de Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte Promotor: Prof. Dr. Bart Keunen voor het verkrijgen van de graad van licentiaat in de taal- en letterkunde: Germaanse Talen, door (Karen Van Godtsenhoven). Credits: The writing of a dissertation requires a lot more than just a computer and books: apart from the many material and practical necessities, there still are many personal and difficult-to- trace advices, inspiring conversations and cityscapes that have helped me writing this little volume. This list cannot be inclusive, but I can try to track down the most relevant people, in their most relevant environment (in the line of the following chapters…). First of all, I want to thank all the people of the University of Ghent, for their help and interest from the very beginning. My promotor, Prof. Bart Keunen, wins the first prize for valuable advice and endless patience with my writings and my person. Other professors and teachers like Claire Vandamme, Bart Eeckhout, Elke Gilson and Katrien De Moor were good mentors and gave me lots of reading material and titles. From my former universities, I want to thank Prof. Martine de Clercq (KUBrussel) who helped me putting things together in an inspiring way. Other thank you’s go to Prof. Kate McGowan (Critical and Cultural Theory) and Prof. Angela Michaelis (Culture of Decadence) from the Manchester Metropolitan University, who gave me a more academic basis for my interest in the subject of this dissertation. I want to thank Petra Broeders from Passaporta in Brussels for lending me books and providing me with coffee, Guido Fourrier from the Fashion Museum in Hasselt for his refreshing tour of the A la Garçonne exhibition, the people from Rosa in Brussels for explaining me several gender issues, and Belle and Carolien from DASQ (Ghent) for their “decadent” literature salons where I had the opportunity to listen and talk to Denise De Weerdt. Then, there are the many friends and family members who supported me from a practical and mostly, psychological point of view. Thanks mom and dad for always being there for me and giving me the chance to study abroad for a year. Hurray for my brother Jeroen for his superb computer-skills, and my brother Martijn for giving me a chance to go to New York the flâneuse-way. Also, I want to thank my Erasmus friends who live all over the globe, for inviting me for time-consuming but inspiring trips to their cities (Maria, Johan, Camilla, Jenny and Gabriel from Stockholm, Maximilian from Graz, Barbara and Artur from Warschau, Ben, Sophia and Dave from Manchester, Tobias and Verena from Kolon, Meghan from Orlando). It gave me real-life experiences for my fourth chapter, and so much more. From Ghent, I want to thank my friends Lore, Hanne, Sarah, Belle, Ruth, Sofie and Rebecca for their unusual interest in an academic subject, whereas Ans, Ellen, Barbara, Maaike, Fille and Noreen (Grimbergen) helped me through the bad patches by providing me with their very entertaining company. Bedankt, Thanks, Tack, Danke schön, Dziekuje and ‘mercikes’ everyone. i I. PREFACE ................................................................................................................................................- 1 - II. PARIS 1840-1900: THE CHILDHOOD OF FEMALE FLÂNERIE..................................................- 8 - A. CONCEPTS FOR NINETEENTH-CENTURY FLÂNERIE ................................................................................. - 8 - 1. Flânerie, or the art of taking a walk ................................................................................................- 8 - 2. The flâneur and the badaud ...........................................................................................................- 10 - 2.1. The flâneur, a figure of paradoxes ........................................................................................................- 10 - 2.2. The badaud ...........................................................................................................................................- 13 - 3. The urban woman: a badaud or sphinx in the city?.......................................................................- 15 - 3.1. Different approaches towards the “impossibility” for female flânerie..................................................- 15 - 3.2. Exclusion of women in the public sphere: the woman as a threat.........................................................- 16 - 3.3. The urban woman as badaud ................................................................................................................- 18 - 4. The Passante, Female Badaud or Flâneuse: what’s in a name? ...................................................- 21 - B. BAUDELAIRE, THE MOST INFLUENTIAL AUTHOR ON FLÂNERIE............................................................. - 22 - 1. The modern urban poet as flâneur.................................................................................................- 22 - 2. Love and Hate: dysforic and euphoric elements in the work of Baudelaire ..................................- 23 - 3. Isolation and Distance ...................................................................................................................- 25 - 4. The artist-flâneur Baudelaire: attracted by bohemian circles.......................................................- 26 - 5. The flâneur’s mode of seeing: intoxicated, hyperreal or naïve?....................................................- 27 - 5.1. The artist’s natural high........................................................................................................................- 27 - 5.2. Hyperrealism, dream-like perception and allegoric visions..................................................................- 28 - 5.3. The first gaze of the flâneur: perception with child-like enthusiasm. ...................................................- 29 - 5.4. The perfect subject: young Maisie reclaiming the innocence of the first gaze......................................- 30 - 6. Flânerie, photography and cinema: the mobilized gaze. ...............................................................- 30 - 6.1. The scopophilic gaze of the flâneur ......................................................................................................- 31 - 6.2. The flâneur: from the painter to the photographer and director of modern life.....................................- 32 - 7. Stasis versus mobility.....................................................................................................................- 34 - 8. Baudelaire’s view on women .........................................................................................................- 35 - 8.1. The passantes........................................................................................................................................- 35 - 8.2. Lesbians in Baudelaire’s work..............................................................................................................- 38 - 8.3. Prostitutes: female offenders or the first flâneuses?..............................................................................- 39 - C. FIN-DE-SIÈCLE GENDER AMBIVALENCES: THE NEW WOMAN AND THE DANDY AS FIGURES OF SOCIAL TRANSITION................................................................................................................................................... - 42 - 1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................................- 42 - 2. Fore-runners of the New Woman: two cross-dressing authors called George..............................- 43 - 2.1. George Sand (1804-1876), the cross-dressing student..........................................................................- 43 - 2.2. George Eliot (°1819- 1860), on the warpath against Victorian femininity. ..........................................- 44 - 3. The New Woman ............................................................................................................................- 45 - 4. The Dandy......................................................................................................................................- 46 - D. SHOPPING AS A MEANS OF OPENING UP THE POSSIBILITY OF FEMALE FLÂNERIE................................... - 48 - 1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................................- 48 - 2. The shopper ‘s gaze .......................................................................................................................- 50 - 3. Au Bonheur des Dames: a male interpretation of shopping women ..............................................- 51 - E. THE FIRST CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................... - 53 - ii III. BERLIN 1918-1940: THE ADOLESCENCE OF FEMALE FLÂNERIE...................................- 54 - A. INTRODUCTION: THE EUROPEAN INTERBELLUM, A PERIOD OF TRANSITION. ........................................ - 54 - 1. Women in Weimar Berlin: still objects of desire or fear?..............................................................- 55 - 2. The depiction of urban women by other European modernists......................................................- 57 - B. THE RETURN AND DEMISE OF THE MALE FLÂNEUR..............................................................................