MSt Special Subject

Reality, Representation and Reflexivity in Nineteenth-Century Prose Writing

Michaelmas Term 2013-2014

Students will meet for 5 sessions of 1.5 hours each. Session 1 will be based on
discussion of texts to be read in advance, with no written work to submit. The reading
list indicates 2-3 literary texts to read for each of sessions 2, 3, 4 and 5, and students
are advised to have made a good start on the primary reading before term begins.
Each student will give a short presentation (in one session each, to be agreed) and
will write essays for the other sessions.

Session Week Topic Tutor

1 1 Histories/texts/contexts Tim Farrant
Reading and discussion
2 -
2 3 Romantic Prose Tim Farrant
3 4 Early Realism Tim Farrant
5 -
4 6 Late Realism/Naturalism Jennifer Yee
7 -
5 8 Decadent Prose Jennifer Yee
Tim Farrant, Pembroke
Jennifer Yee, Christ Church

Primary reading (separate bibliographies with suggested secondary reading will

follow)
(set texts for discussion in essays and/or tutorials are marked with a *, but as
background you should also have read some of the other works suggested)

1. Histories/texts/contexts (reading and discussion)

*Abrams, M.H., The Mirror and the Lamp. Romantic Theory and the Critical
Tradition (Oxford: OUP, 1953 and reprints), chs 2 and 3 (p. 31-46)
*Auerbach, tr. W. Trask, Mimesis (Princeton: 1953 and reprints), ch. 18, ‘In the Hôtel
de la Mole’, p. 454-492.
*Lukacs, G., Balzac et le réalisme français / Studies in European Realism (Fr. tr. P.
Laveau, Paris: F. Maspero, 1969; Eng. tr. E. Bone, London: The Merlin Press, 1978),
preface.
These extracts are intended to suggest some overall orientations for the subject as a
whole. You may wish also to read Lukacs’s chapters on Illusions perdues and
Balzac’s article on La Chartreuse de Parme with a view to topic 3, and Auerbach’s
chapter 19 on Germinie Lacerteux in relation to topic 4. The following studies have
useful sections on some of the set texts, as well as proposing broader critical
approaches:
Brombert, Victor, The Hidden Reader (Cambridge, Mass., & London: Harvard UP,
1988), 9-37 (intro and section on Le Lys dans la valléé); also contains essays on
L’Education sentimentale and Stendhal and irony.
Brooks, Peter, Realist Vision (Yale: YUP, 2005) – chapters on Balzac and Flaubert..
Petrey, Sandy, Realism and Revolution (Cornell UP, Ithaca and London, 1988) –
chapters on Le Rouge et le noir and Le Père Goriot.

2. Romantic Prose
Chateaubriand, ‘René’* and ‘Atala’*
Musset, Confession d’un enfant du siècle*
Balzac, Le Lys dans la vallée

3. Early Realism
Stendhal, Le Rouge et le Noir*; Lucien Leuwen (Garnier-Flammarion edition); La
Chartreuse de Parme
Balzac, Le Père Goriot*; Illusions perdues; article on La Chartreuse de Parme, 1840
(discussed by Lukacs in the work cited)

4. Late Realism/Naturalism
Flaubert, L’Education sentimentale*; Madame Bovary
Les Frères Goncourt, Germinie Lacerteux
Maupassant, ‘Le Roman’, Préface à Pierre et Jean, 1887
Zola, La Bête humaine* ; Thérèse Raquin ; Zola, Le Roman expérimental

5. Decadent Prose
Huysmans, A rebours*, Là-bas
Rachilde, La Marquise de Sade*, La Jongleuse [Novels by Rachilde can be quite hard
to get hold of; check Blackwells’ holdings, or amazon.fr or chapitre.com; otherwise
you can consult them on Gallica]

Questions from which to choose for your essays and presentation:

Histories/Texts/Contexts:

How important is history in the development of early realism?

‘The central tension of realism falls between subjectivity and objectivity’. Discuss.

Romantic Prose:
 1. ‘La mémoire est souvent la qualité de la sottise; elle appartient également aux
esprits lourds, qu’elle rend plus pesants par le bagage dont elle les surcharge.
Et néanmoins, sans la mémoire, que serions-nous ? O misère de nous ! notre
vie est si vaine qu’elle n’est qu’un reflet de notre mémoire.’ (Chateaubriand).
Discuss in the light of your reading of Romantic prose.
2. ‘L’allusion est la forme qui convient le mieux à une époque vidée de
substance. L’action s’est retirée pour laisser place à la parole’. (A. Heyvaert).
Do you agree? Explore the relationship between narrative, expression and
action in the work of two or more writers of Romantic prose.
3. ‘Une société divisée à cause de l’individualisme, et l’insuffisance de
l’individualisme à remplir le cœur conduit à rechercher ce qui peut unir les
hommes et à la nostalgie des temps où ils étaient (où on croit qu’ils étaient)
unis.’(…) La brève et exaltante fraternité de l’action au service d’une cause
juste, voilà ce que le XIXe siècle refuse à ses enfants. L’individu s’y définit
par opposition au groupe, mais il en souffre’. (Barbéris).

Early Realism :

1. ‘Le réalisme trouve son unité sur le terrain de la morale : il produit une
vision du monde dérangeante, reçue comme homogène’ (Ph. Dufour). How
adequate is this remark as a characterization of the aims and achievements of
early realism?
2. ‘Les romanciers sont des raconteurs du passé ; les romanciers des raconteurs
du présent’ (E. & J. de Goncourt). How paradoxical is this remark, and how
usefully may it be applied to the work of early French realist writers ?

Late Realism/Naturalism:

1. ‘Naturalist literature calls upon the strategies of realism to represent a process

of levelling or dissolution, through which meaning collapses into indeterminacy.’ To
what extent is this quotation (adapted from David Baguley) useful in reading the texts
studied?
OR
2. ‘Late Realism is predicated on the failure of the autonomous subject.’ Discuss
with reference to the texts studied.

Decadent writing:

1. To what extent is irony essential to understanding fin-de-siècle ‘decadent’

writing?
OR
2. ‘Decadent explorations of “gender trouble” do not reflect burgeoning
feminism but rather a profound disquiet concerning the role of Nature itself.’ Discuss
with reference to the texts studied.