SSStttooonnnyyy BBBrrrooooookkk UUUnnniiivvveeerrrsssiiitttyyy The official electronic file of this thesis or dissertation is maintained by the University Libraries on behalf of The Graduate School at Stony Brook University. ©©© AAAllllll RRRiiiggghhhtttsss RRReeessseeerrrvvveeeddd bbbyyy AAAuuuttthhhooorrr... The Text at an Impasse: Authorial, Representational, and Structural Boredoms in Selected Works by Gautier, Flaubert, and Gissing A Dissertation Presented by Ashar E. Foley to The Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature Stony Brook University August 2014 Copyright by Ashar Foley 2014 Stony Brook University The Graduate School Ashar Foley We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation. Robert Harvey – Dissertation Advisor Distinguished Professor and Chair, Cultural Analysis and Theory Sandy Petrey – Chairperson of Defense Professor Emeritus, Cultural Analysis and Theory Adrienne Munich Professor, English Patricia Meyer Spacks Edgar F. Shannon Professor Emerita, English University of Virginia This dissertation is accepted by the Graduate School Charles Taber Dean of the Graduate School ii Abstract of the Dissertation The Text at an Impasse: Authorial, Representational, and Structural Boredoms in Selected Works by Gautier, Flaubert, and Gissing by Ashar E. Foley Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature Stony Brook University 2014 Théophile Gautier, Gustave Flaubert, and George Gissing deploy tropes of bored readers and writers and dilatory narrative structures in order to register their ambivalence toward the shift from sponsorship of the arts to a literary marketplace. In contrast to popular eighteenth- and nineteenth-century conceptions of the mood as sign of bad character, intellectual deficiency, or elitism, my chosen novelists posit boredom as a site from which to assess and critique their roles in culture. I begin with the problem of boredom's possibility in a literary text: boredom must be dispelled a priori for writing and reading to take place, making it the writer's duty to solicit his reader and the reader's duty to be solicitous. Gautier's epistolary Mademoiselle de Maupin neglects both duties, however: the writer, d'Albert, writes only his boredom, while the reader who would alleviate it, the titular Mademoiselle, breaks the bonds of her own boredom and exits the novel in search of a livelier story. Her departure topples the anticipatory structure erected by d'Albert's letters, and recapitulates the move in French romanticism from an emphasis on mood iii to the popular romantic mode adopted by a growing number of non-traditional commercial writers, of whom Mademoiselle is emblematic. My second chapter discusses Flaubert's writing practice in relation to boredom's movements of withdrawal, stasis, and eventual reengagement. Madame Bovary's experiment with language as dead, malleable object reflects Flaubert's belief that boredom had made of him "a phantom that thinks." I then trace Flaubert's reemergence from phantomhood throughout Bouvard et Pécuchet, a work that parrots contemporary discourse. My final chapter asserts George Gissing's indelible place in British realism, as his work recreates the tones and textures of middle-class experience, particularly the experience of boredom as fostered by mass culture. New Grub Street's and In the Year of Jubilee's characters' boredom marks them as sympathetic, as crucially sensitive to and critical of their environment. Gissing's psychological portraiture distinguishes him as cultural critic, of both his day and days to come. iv I dedicate this thesis to Alice and Ray Browne— Your mentoring, generosity, and kindness continue to let the light in. v Table of Contents List of Abbreviations....................................................................................................................viii Acknowledgements.........................................................................................................................ix Introduction: Whence and Why Boredom (and Why Not?)............................................................1 Works Cited.......................................................................................................................20 Chapter 1: Reading, Writing, and Boredom in Gautier's Mademoiselle de Maupin I. The Rules of the Game: The Possibility of Boredom in Reading and Writing.............23 II. Can There Still Be a Game?: The Authorial Obstacle.................................................30 III. “Beaucoup de choses sont ennuyeuses”: The Authorial Obstacle, Continued...........41 IV. Producing the Text: The Beautiful Reader.................................................................59 V. From Reader to Writer: The Part of “the Part with No Part”.......................................71 VI. Conclusion..................................................................................................................86 Works Cited.......................................................................................................................87 Chapter 2: Flaubert’s Boredom in Three Movements and Two Novels I. Dissatisfaction Retreating from the World, Killing the Novelistic................................................91 II. Removal Fantôme qui pense: Ghostly Views of Flaubert's Thinking Phantom...................96 Être toujours mal: Writing without Desire..........................................................114 III. Reengagement Les Attaches puissantes: Writing Reemergence, Writing Reading.....................133 vi IV. Conclusion................................................................................................................162 Works Cited.....................................................................................................................163 Chapter 3: George Gissing’s Dullness by Design I. An Argument for George Gissing...............................................................................168 II. All Apologies: The State of Gissing Studies..............................................................170 III. Gissing in Context: Fiction and Its Discontents.......................................................181 IV. Societal Tension, Textual Boredom: Gissing’s Proto-Modernism as Cultural Critique New Grub Street...................................................................................................197 In the Year of Jubilee...........................................................................................214 V. Conclusion.................................................................................................................234 Works Cited.....................................................................................................................238 Conclusion: The Demon of Noontide..........................................................................................245 Works Cited.....................................................................................................................258 Bibliography................................................................................................................................260 vii List of Abbreviations Chapter 1 JF Les Jeunes France MM Mademoiselle de Maupin Chapter 2 BP Bouvard et Pécuchet MB Madame Bovary Chapter 3 NGS New Grub Street IYJ In the Year of Jubilee viii Acknowledgments I would like to thank, in no particular order, my friends and family for their unfailing support, my husband Alan, my cat Gizmo, my committee members, my longtime mentors Jeremy Smith and Paul Eisenstein, my mentor-in-spirit Adam Phillips, the Browne family, my colleagues in the English Department—particularly Eileen Chanza, Rachel Ellis, Emily Churilla, and Rachel Walsh—who served as readers and nudgers, Dr. Peter Manning for time well spent with him in the 2010 Andrew Mellon Fellowship Interdisciplinary Seminar, and Dr. Robert Harvey and Dr.- to-be Dylan Godwin for consistently modeling good writing. Finally, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge all the horrible childhood afternoons spent staring at the ceiling fan. For better or worse, boredom has proven to be my wellspring—as Siegfried Kracauer writes, “in the boredom that refuses to abate, one hatches bagatelles that are as boring as this one.” ix Introduction: Whence and Why Boredom (and Why Not?) Behold the nineteenth century: the ascendance of fossil fuels, telegraphy, photography, telephony, phonography, train travel, electric light, improved sanitation, exploding population, the fall of monarchies, the rise of the bourgeoisie, the collapse of empires, the spread of empires, the massacre of native peoples, the formation of disciplines, detective fiction, auto-didacticism, vaccination, utopian communes, urban planning, environmental conservation, two Napoleons, one Victoria, the Salon des Refusés, the Hausmannization of Paris, Wagner, The Communist Manifesto, labor strikes, slavery's decline, serfdom's abolition, financial panics, the development of mass and global culture. Exciting, tumultuous, and troubling times to be alive; a century of political, financial, industrial and cultural revolution; an era with no end of things to splendor in, rally against, and struggle for. And yet: one is bored. Taking up this seeming discrepancy as its originary occasion, this dissertation examines the presence of boredom in a selection