REFLECTIONS OF AN IMPOSSIBLE IDEAL: PASSION AS THE WILL TO DOWNFALL IN MADAME BOVARY By Christopher Ramponi A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Humboldt State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in English Committee Membership Dr. Mary Ann Creadon, Committee Chair Dr. Natalie Giannini, Committee Member Dr. Janet Winston, Program Graduate Coordinator July 2020 ABSTRACT REFLECTIONS OF AN IMPOSSIBLE IDEAL: PASSION AS THE WILL TO DOWNFALL IN MADAME BOVARY Christopher Ramponi Broadly speaking, this thesis is an examination of passionate love: its qualities, its presentation, the ends to which it is employed, its paradoxical nature, and set of beliefs surrounding it—in short, the impossibility of it all. More narrowly, this thesis argues that in Madame Bovary, Flaubert attaches a specifically twelfth-century understanding of passion to Emma Bovary, one that is at the heart of troubadour lyric poetry. What is more, I argue that Emma finds in this vision of love, whose structure is built upon a Neoplatonist dialectic and expressed through a paradoxical antithesis, an Ideal—an ideal world, life, and vision of herself—to which she devotes her entire life. An understanding of passion in this way, I believe, changes the light in which Emma Bovary is too often cast. Rather than advancing a point of view that perpetuates interpretations of Emma as naive, hopelessly sentimental, and at the complete mercy of (dis)illusion, this thesis argues that conceptualizing passion as an end in itself reveals in Emma a purposeful quest for transcendence as well as a nonpareil level of agency and self-actualization, the likes of which there is no equal in nineteenth-century French fiction. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To Dr. Mary Ann Creadon, for not only gifting me a pair of wings when I hardly had two legs to stand on but for making me aware of the possibility of flying. To Dr. Natalie Giannini, for acting as my compass and helping me stay the course. Your guidance and insight have proven invaluable. It is with great regret that I find myself lacking the necessary words to express the tremendous gratitude and respect I have for you both. It is with the deepest humility that I say without you, none of this would have been possible. To you, who granted me a vision of the Ideal, even in your absence, I find a piece of you on every page. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iii INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 I. Emma Bovary and the Question of Desire ............................................................. 1 The role of Madame Bovary ....................................................................................... 1 II. Flaubert and the Romantic/Realist Divide .............................................................. 5 Romantic or Realist: the dispute over Madame Bovary ............................................. 5 The critiques of Sainte-Beuve and Baudelaire ............................................................ 7 Autres temps, autres mœurs: a new vision of Emma Bovary ................................... 11 A different kind of reading........................................................................................ 14 III. The Myth of Passionate Love ........................................................................... 17 The blue flower ......................................................................................................... 17 Differentiating passion in the nineteenth century ..................................................... 19 The three branches of passionate love ...................................................................... 23 Passion as edifying .................................................................................................... 23 Passion as sickness .................................................................................................... 26 Passion as an end in itself ......................................................................................... 29 Outline of chapters .................................................................................................... 35 CHAPTER 1: FLAUBERT AND THE TROUBADOURS ............................................. 37 I. Fin’ Amor.............................................................................................................. 37 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 37 iv Twelfth-century fin’amor in nineteenth-century Romanticism ................................ 39 II. Conveying Message Through Form...................................................................... 47 Provençal lyric poetry and the linguistic impossibility of passion ........................... 47 The attempt ............................................................................................................... 56 III. The Narrative Structure of Passion ................................................................... 59 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 59 Breaking down the myth ........................................................................................... 62 On Narcissus ............................................................................................................. 67 IV. A Clarification of Terms ................................................................................... 69 On Lacan ................................................................................................................... 69 What has been ascertained so far .............................................................................. 71 CHAPTER 2: VISIONS OF PERFECT BEAUTY AND THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF DESIRE............................................................................................................................. 72 I. The Cult of the Mirror........................................................................................... 72 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 72 The image vs. the Real .............................................................................................. 75 II. The Role of the Mirror in Medieval Provençal Literature .................................... 81 The different stages of reflection .............................................................................. 81 The mythical beginnings of Madame Bovary ........................................................... 91 III. The Idealizing Mirror ........................................................................................ 93 Pre-experience and the birth of the Ideal in Madame Bovary................................... 93 Fragments of the Ideal .............................................................................................. 96 The first engagement with the Ideal ........................................................................ 106 v CHAPTER 3: REALIZATION, EXPERIENCE, AND THE MATERIALITY OF THE MIRROR ......................................................................................................................... 109 I. Chipping Away at the Ideal ................................................................................ 109 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 109 A taste of the Ideal .................................................................................................. 112 A slow decline ......................................................................................................... 121 The materiality of the mirror ................................................................................... 126 The duplicity of the mirror ...................................................................................... 130 Léon and the fall of language .................................................................................. 134 II. Rodolphe and the Abolition of the Ideal ............................................................. 138 The entwining of the Real and the Ideal ................................................................. 138 Consummation ........................................................................................................ 144 Emma Bovary as obstacle ....................................................................................... 154 Face to face with death and the Ideal ...................................................................... 157 CHAPTER 4: THE RECOGNITION OF THE IDEAL ................................................. 160 I. The Lover’s Choice............................................................................................. 160 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 160 The shattering of illusion ........................................................................................ 165 Strategic self-deception and the reinstatement of the Ideal ...................................