Voice, Silence and Narrative Distance in the Stories of Prosper Merimee

129 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998.Prosper Merimee's short stories represent for some "a new art form in French literature" (Sachs 77). The uniqueness and "newness" of Merimee's stories is the result of a striking narrative distance employed at a historical moment where proximity is the norm. The Romantics favored an esthetics of unfulfilled desire, emotional effusion and emotional engagement. Merimee's narrators instead disengage themselves from the tales they narrate, leaving the characters on their own in an irrational fictional world. Where practitioners of the nouvelle before Merimee were quick to justify their characters' actions or explain the existence of their narratives with a concluding moral, Merimee's stories defy simple interpretation by silencing important events or by restricting access to characters' thoughts. He thereby creates distant characters of exotic otherness whose actions his narrators seem unable to explain. The distance between the narrator (and by extension the reader) and his characters is largely created through an innovative use of represented speech, polyphonic irony, antithesis, narrative perspective (focalization) and ellipsis. Characters' voices are predominantly represented directly, cut off from the narrator's dominant level of enunciation, confined behind bars of punctuation. Their voices are ironized by a narrator who appears unable to understand the strong emotions which they exhibit. Important events which would enable readers to understand the characters' motivations are entirely left out or left unexplained. Narratives are built upon the unstable foundation of antithesis, leaving characters and readers in a position of hesitation when seeking sure points of reference within Merimee's texts. The distance in Merimee's narratives is the source of uneasiness felt by readers who are hard pressed to feel comfortable with the opacity of apparently transparent texts. In addition, it is the source of Merimee's unique contribution to French literature.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

Voice, Silence and Narrative Distance in the Stories of Prosper Merimee

129 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998.Prosper Merimee's short stories represent for some "a new art form in French literature" (Sachs 77). The uniqueness and "newness" of Merimee's stories is the result of a striking narrative distance employed at a historical moment where proximity is the norm. The Romantics favored an esthetics of unfulfilled desire, emotional effusion and emotional engagement. Merimee's narrators instead disengage themselves from the tales they narrate, leaving the characters on their own in an irrational fictional world. Where practitioners of the nouvelle before Merimee were quick to justify their characters' actions or explain the existence of their narratives with a concluding moral, Merimee's stories defy simple interpretation by silencing important events or by restricting access to characters' thoughts. He thereby creates distant characters of exotic otherness whose actions his narrators seem unable to explain. The distance between the narrator (and by extension the reader) and his characters is largely created through an innovative use of represented speech, polyphonic irony, antithesis, narrative perspective (focalization) and ellipsis. Characters' voices are predominantly represented directly, cut off from the narrator's dominant level of enunciation, confined behind bars of punctuation. Their voices are ironized by a narrator who appears unable to understand the strong emotions which they exhibit. Important events which would enable readers to understand the characters' motivations are entirely left out or left unexplained. Narratives are built upon the unstable foundation of antithesis, leaving characters and readers in a position of hesitation when seeking sure points of reference within Merimee's texts. The distance in Merimee's narratives is the source of uneasiness felt by readers who are hard pressed to feel comfortable with the opacity of apparently transparent texts. In addition, it is the source of Merimee's unique contribution to French literature.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

Velocipedomania: A Cultural History of the Velocipede in France

When blacksmith Pierre Michaux affixed pedals to the front axle of a two-wheeled scooter with a seat, he helped kick off a craze known as velocipedomania, which swept France in the late 1860s. The immediate forerunner of the bicycle, the velocipede similarly reflected changing cultural attitudes and challenged gender norms. Velocipedomania is the first in-depth study of the velocipede fad and the popular culture it inspired. It explores how the device was hailed as a symbol of France’s cutting-edge technological advancements, yet also marketed as an invention with a noble pedigree, born from the nation’s cultural and literary heritage. Giving readers a window into the material culture and enthusiasms of Second Empire France, it provides the first English translations of 1869’s Manual of the Velocipede, 1868’s Note on Monsieur Michaux’s Velocipede, and the 1869 operetta Dagobert and his Velocipede. It also reprints scores of rare images from newspapers and advertisements, analyzing how these magnificent machines captured the era’s visual imagination. By looking at how it influenced French attitudes towards politics, national identity, technology, fashion, fitness, and gender roles, this book shows how the short-lived craze of velocipedomania had a big impact.https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/bucknell-press/1090/thumbnail.jp

Breaking the duel's rules : Brantôme, Mérimée, and Melville

Figures de duellistes, respect des règles, du code de l'honneur et tricherie lors du duel à travers deux oeuvres de la littérature française : 'Discours sur les duels' de Brantôme, 'Chronique du règne de Charles IX' de Mérimée, et une oeuvre cinématographique, 'Le deuxième souffle' de J.P. Melvill

Mormons in Paris: Polygamy on the French Stage, 1874-1892

In the late nineteenth century, numerous French plays, novels, cartoons, and works of art focused on Mormons. Unlike American authors who portrayed Mormons as malevolent “others,” however, French dramatists used Mormonism to point out hypocrisy in their own culture. Aren\u27t Mormon women, because of their numbers in a household, more liberated than French women who can\u27t divorce? What is polygamy but another name for multiple mistresses? This new critical edition presents translations of four musical comedies staged or published in France in the late 1800s: Mormons in Paris (1874), Berthelier Meets the Mormons (1875), Japheth’s Twelve Wives (1890), and Stephana’s Jewel (1892). Each is accompanied by a short contextualizing introduction with details about the music, playwrights, and staging. Humorous and largely unknown, these plays use Mormonism to explore and mock changing French mentalities during the Third Republic, lampooning shifting attitudes and evolving laws about marriage, divorce, and gender roles.https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/bucknell-press/1042/thumbnail.jp