Stendhal's Less-Loved Heroines: Fiction, Freedom, and the Female

142 Pages·2013·3.972 MB·English

by  Maria C. Scott

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Who are the real heroes of Stendhal’s fiction? Stendhal’s research monographs in
Less-Loved Heroines overturns accepted ideas about the place french studies form a
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of men and women in his novels and shorter stories. It separate series within the t
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challenges the notion that French Realist fiction is peculiarly legenda programme and
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and intrinsically hostile to female freedom, arguing that it are selected and edited d
is criticism itself that has marginalized Stendhal’s non- by the Society for French h
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compliant heroines and condemned them as self-centred. Studies. The series seeks to l
Mina de Vanghel, Vanina Vanini, Mathilde de La Mole, publish the best new work ’s

and Lamiel are self-seeking in the fullest possible sense, in all areas of the literature, L
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committed to the pursuit of their own happiness and the thought, theory, culture, s RESEARCH MONOGRAPHS IN FRENCH STUDIES 37
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realization of their freedom in a world where these were seen film and language of the -
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as incompatible goals for women. Scott contends that the French-speaking world.
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philosophy of freedom championed by Sartre and Beauvoir v Stendhal’s Less-Loved Heroines
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enables an alternative reading of Stendhal’s less-loved
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heroines, one that finally does justice to their formidable
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power of — and pleasure in — self-invention.
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Maria Scott is Lecturer in French at National University of o Fiction, Freedom, and the Female
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Ireland, Galway.
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Maria C. Scott
ISBN 978-1-907975-71-4
cover illustration: Title page of the second volume
of the first edition of Le Rouge et le Noir, published by
9 781907 975714 Levavasseur (1831). © Bibliothèque nationale de France Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge
MScott-9781907975714-cover.indd 1 5/4/13 17:22:01
Stendhal’s Less-Loved Heroines
Fiction, Freedom, and the Female
Legenda
leenda, founded in 1995 by the european Humanities Research Centre of
the University of Oxford, is now a joint imprint of the Modern Humanities
Research association and Routledge. Titles range from medieval texts to
contemporary cinema and form a widely comparative view of the modern
humanities, including works on arabic, Catalan, english, French, german, greek,
Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Yiddish literature. an editorial Board of
distinguished academic specialists works in collaboration with leading scholarly
bodies such as the Society for French Studies and the British Comparative Literature
association.
The Modern Humanities Research association (mhra) encourages and promotes
advanced study and research in the field of the modern humanities, especially
modern european languages and literature, including english, and also cinema.
It also aims to break down the barriers between scholars working in different
disciplines and to maintain the unity of humanistic scholarship in the face of
increasing specialization. The association fulfils this purpose primarily through the
publication of journals, bibliographies, monographs and other aids to research.
Routledge is a global publisher of academic books, journals and online resources in the
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Routledge is one of the world’s leading academic publishers in the Humanities and Social
Sciences. It publishes thousands of books and journals each year, serving scholars,
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www.routledge.com
research monographs in
french studies
the Research Monographs in French Studies (rmfs) are selected, edited and supported
by the society for french studies. the series seeks to publish the best new work in
all areas of the literature, thought, theory, culture, film and language of the french-
speaking world. its distinctiveness lies in the tight focus and relative brevity of its
publications (50,000-60,000 words).
as innovation is a priority of the series, volumes should predominantly consist of
new material, although, subject to appropriate modification, previously published
research may form up to one third of the whole. proposals may include critical
editions as well as critical studies. they should be sent with one or two sample
chapters for consideration to the general editor, professor diana Knight, at diana.
[email protected].
❖
Editorial Committee
diana Knight, university of nottingham (general editor)
adrian armstrong, Queen mary, university of London
Janice carruthers, Queen’s university Belfast
nicholas harrison, King’s college London
neil Kenny, all souls college, oxford
Jennifer Yee, christ church, oxford
Advisory Committee
Wendy ayres-Bennett, new hall, cambridge
celia Britton, university college London
ann Jefferson, new college, oxford
sarah Kay, princeton university
diana Knight, university of nottingham
michael moriarty, university of cambridge
Keith reader, university of glasgow
Managing Editor
graham nelson
41 Wellington Square, Oxford ox1 2jf, UK
puBLished in this series
1. Privileged Anonymity: The Writings of Madame de Lafayette by anne green
2. Stéphane Mallarmé. Correspondance: compléments et suppléments
edited by Lloyd James austin, Bertrand marchal and nicola Luckhurst
3. Critical Fictions: Nerval’s ‘Les Illuminés’ by meryl tyers
4. Towards a Cultural Philology by amy Wygant
5. George Sand and Autobiography by Janet hiddleston
6. Expressivism by Johnnie gratton
7. Memory and Survival: The French Cinema of Krzysztof Kiesłowski by emma Wilson
8. Between Sequence and ‘Sirventes’ by catherine Léglu
9. All Puns Intended by Walter redfern
10. Saint-Evremond: A Voice From Exile edited by denys potts
11. La Cort d’Amor: A Critical Edition edited by matthew Bardell
12. Race and the Unconscious by celia Britton
13. Proust: La Traduction du sensible by nathalie aubert
14. Silent Witness: Racine’s Non-Verbal Annotations of Euripides by susanna phillippo
15. Robert Antelme: Humanity, Community, Testimony by martin crowley
16. By the People for the People? by christopher prendergast
17. Alter Ego: The Critical Writings of Michel Leiris by seán hand
18. Two Old French Satires on the Power of the Keys edited by daron Burrows
19. Oral Narration in Modern French by Janice carruthers
20. Selfless Cinema? Ethics and French Documentary by sarah cooper
21. Poisoned Words: Slander and Satire in Early Modern France by emily Butterworth
22. France/China: Intercultural Imaginings by alex hughes
23. Biography in Early Modern France 1540–1630 by Katherine macdonald
24. Balzac and the Model of Painting by diana Knight
25. Exotic Subversions in Nineteenth-Century French Literature by Jennifer Yee
26. The Syllables of Time: Proust and the History of Reading by teresa Whitington
27. Personal Effects: Reading the ‘Journal’ of Marie Bashkirtseff by sonia Wilson
28. The Choreography of Modernism in France by Julie townsend
29. Voices and Veils by anna Kemp
30. Syntactic Borrowing in Contemporary French: A Linguistic Analysis of
News Translation by mairi mcLaughlin
31. Dreams of Lovers and Lies of Poets:
Poetry, Knowledge, and Desire in the ‘Roman de la Rose’ by sylvia huot
32. Maryse Condé and the Space of Literature by eva sansavior
33. The Livres-Souvenirs of Colette: Genre and the Telling of Time by anne freadman
34. Furetière’s roman bourgeois and the Problem of Exchange by craig moyes
35. The Subversive Poetics of Alfred Jarry: Ubusing Culture in the Almanachs du Père Ubu
by marieke dubbelboer
36. Echo’s Voice: The Theatres of Sarraute, Duras, Cixous and Renaude by mary noonan
37. Stendhal’s Less-Loved Heroines: Fiction, Freedom, and the Female by maria c. scott
www.legendabooks.com
Stendhal’s Less-Loved Heroines
Fiction, Freedom, and the Female
❖
Maria C. Scott
Research Monographs in French Studies 37
Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge
2013
First published 2013
Published by the
Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge
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LEGENDA is an imprint of the
Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© Modern Humanities Research Association and Taylor & Francis 2013
ISBN 978-1-907975-71-4(hbk)
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Contents
❖
Acknowledgements ix
Note on Translations x
introduction 1
1 mina, Vanina, and the Logic of the strange step 12
2 mathilde and the paradox of authenticity 47
3 on not taking Lamiel seriously 83
conclusion 117
Bibliography 121
Index 129
for ciara
and other much-loved daughters
ACKnoWLeDGeMents
❖
if this book has taken a long time to complete, it is at least partly because i have
enjoyed the journey so much. it has brought me into contact with a number of
wonderful people who also happen to be outstanding stendhal scholars. i am
very grateful, in particular, to Yves ansel, Xavier Bourdenet, serge Linkès, and
catherine mariette for their generosity and collegiality, and to Lucy garnier and
francesco manzini for being such selfless, enlightening, and sympathetic fellow
travellers over the past few years; they have made me realize the great luck of the
lone researcher who finds good company along the road. my debt to david scott,
my most long-standing academic friend and ally, is too fundamental to repay. i am
also very thankful to Barbara Wright, who has shown much kindness to me over
the years, especially on the day i landed in her office with a far-fetched theory
about Le Rouge et le Noir. the Legenda team, and particularly ann Jefferson, diana
Knight, graham nelson, susan Wharton, and Jennifer Yee, have been extremely
professional and supportive; the editorial committee, along with the anonymous
reader of the manuscript, offered much wise and constructive advice. my thanks go
too to Jean anderson, for her help and advice at an early stage of the project, and
to susan harrow, for the university of Bristol fellowship that ensured continuity
of library access during a period of transition and displacement. this project would
never have got off the ground without the generous assistance of the irish research
council for humanities and social sciences, which funded an entire year of
research leave in 2004–2005. i am indebted to my very hardworking colleagues at
national university of ireland, galway, for facilitating that period of leave as well
as a year of sabbatical research in 2008. thank you to my husband, simon potter,
for the time, in all senses, that he has given me. he and our children, tommy and
ciara, have lived with this project for as long as they have known me. i think they
will not miss it.
some of the arguments made in the following chapters were previously
published, in different form, in French Studies, 62 (2008), The Irish Journal of French
Studies, 8 (2008), and L’Année stendhalienne, 11 (2012). thank you to the editors of
these journals for their encouragement and input.
all errors are, unfortunately, my own.
m.c.s., Bristol, march 2013