Littérature et olfaction (XVIIIe-XXe siècles) Éléments de bibliographie (1979-2017)

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“Un nez qui pense”. Le parfumeur en théoricien

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“Comme l’attouchement d’une main moite de volupté”. Toucher, genre et sexualité dans La Curée

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A perdre haleine. Considérations interdisciplinaires sur l'odeur du baiser au XIXe siècle

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Un mystère emblématique : le cas Luis d'Herdy (1875-1902)

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Sang et Encens : penser la chair et le sacré dans la littérature décadente

The olfactory cultures of the ancient Mediterranean area (among others) closely associated the blood of sacrificial victims with the smoke of consecrated incense rising from the altars. This type of belief persists in the Catholic sensorium, thanks in particular to the apocryphal Gospels, which describe the balm and the chrism as aromatic products derived from the blood of Christ. Used in European pharmacopoeias, animal blood and aromatic raw materials shared similar prophylactic, medicinal, and sacred properties until the spread of Pasteurian hygienism throughout the 19th century. As French society enters the final stage of its de-Christianisation process, blood and aromatics are no longer part of the dominant medical practices. Still, the analogy between blood and incense becomes an omnipresent part of Decadent imagery and culture. This contribution examines some of the cultural representations of the blood/incense analogy during the 1857-1914 period. Drawing on liturgical, anthropological and historical data regarding this analogy, as well as extracts from the prose and verse of Rachilde, Jane de la Vaudère, Gabriele d'Annunzio and Jean Lorrain (among others), the study argues that this association is an attempt of Decadent culture to consider the flesh and the sacred together, through blood and incense.Les cultures olfactives du bassin méditerranéen antique associent étroitement le sang des victimes sacrificielles à la fumée de l’encens consacré s’élevant des autels. Ce type de croyance perdure dans le sensorium catholique grâce notamment aux Évangiles apocryphes qui font du baume et du chrême des produits aromatiques issus du sang du Christ. Également employés dans les pharmacopées européennes, le sang et les matières premières de parfumerie sont chargés des mêmes vertus prophylactiques, médicinales et sacrées jusqu’à la diffusion de l’hygiénisme pasteurien tout au long du XIXe siècle. Évacuée du domaine médical alors que la société française entame le dernier moment de sa déchristianisation, l’amalgame entre sang et encens se réfugie dans la culture littéraire dite « décadent », au croisement des avant-gardes symbolistes et des nombreux minores oubliés de la fin-de-siècle. Cette contribution étudie quelques avatars des représentations culturelles de l’association sang/encens dans la période 1857-1914. En partant des données liturgiques, anthropologiques et historiques traitant de cette analogie, mais aussi d’extraits des œuvres en prose et en vers de Rachilde, Jane de la Vaudère, Gabriele d'Annunzio et Jean Lorrain (entre autres), cette contribution analyse le traitement que fait la culture dite « décadente » de cette association entre sang et encens comme un moyen de considérer conjointement la chair et le sacré

From Coumarou to New-Mown-Hay. A Cultural History of Coumarin Across the Atlantic (17th-20th c.)

International audienceFrom the late 1850s to the first years of WWI, the British, French, and American élites were seemingly obsessed with one scent – freshly mown hay – as identified by the molecule responsible for its characteristic fragrance: coumarin. In fragrance adverts, society pages, poems, and novels, the cultural omnipresence of mass-produced New-Mown-Hay fragrances is visible through a considerable rise in production of hay-scented perfumes and cosmetics across the West, but especially in France, between 1850 and 1930. From face powders and sachets to handkerchief extracts, New-Mown-Hay-scented products owe their success to the availability of two raw materials: the Tonka bean and synthetic coumarin. Originating from the forests of the Guyana Shield, the Tonka tree (Dipteryx odorata) grows in Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana, and parts of Brazil. First used in Indigenous and Creole communities for medicinal and aromatic purposes, the Tonka bean becomes a valuable commodity of transatlantic trade between France, England, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and their colonies during the first half of the 19th century. It shares a common fate with more frequently studied colonial botanical commodities, such as cinchona, rubber, coffee, tobacco, or cane sugar. The success story of Tonka in 19th-century Western culture is a curious case of olfactory cultural history. The omnipresent use of Tonka in the fragrance industry for decades may not be solely due to its objective qualities as a raw material but rather to its cultural and commercial appeal as a fixture of France’s economic, political, and cultural imperialism over southern American territories. Using qualitative methods and drawing from historical, ethnobotanical, industrial, and literary sources, I hereby demonstrate how European colonial history and culture have turned a specific scent into a commodity, rather than the odorous object itself. Through a materialist consideration of olfactory history, this article examines cultural representations of the scent of new-mown hay through the aromatic raw materials used for its production to describe the processes through which a smell itself can be the subject of sensory commodification

Orchids, Arums, and Tiger Lilies: Queer Olfactory Culture and Tropical Plants (France, 1885-1905)

International audienceIn 19th c. France, a general appreciation for perfume is already considered as effeminate and a cause moral suspicion. Indeed, the preference for the strange, overwhelming fragrances associated with tropical plants is especially perceived as a social oversight, an ethical transgression, thus potentially indicating ‘sexual inversion’ and racial ‘degeneracy’ (Wicky; Borloz, ‘Le Parfum de l’Inverti’). In that regard, the cultural context of late 19th century France, with its instrumental role into developing fragrance as a commodity fit for mass-consumption (Williams), can help outline the queer-coding of certain aromatic practices related to non-European botanicals, their raw materials, and their scents, especially in the context of Decadent subculture (Krueger, Perfume on the Page 207–36). While pathologized and sensationalized ‘sexual inversion’ becomes a mainstream object of collective discourse in late 19th century France (Borloz, ‘Le Parfum de l’Inverti’), I will show how queer culture purposefully reclaims the monstrous connotations surrounding aromatic tropical flora to reject heteronormative fragrance etiquette and thus subvert supposedly innate, or ‘natural’, olfactory, and sexual preferences. The perceived monstrosity of tropical plants and their scents, as it is associated with queer aesthetics, bodies, sexual, and social practices, supports a queer ecological re-reading of Decadence olfactory culture, in line with concepts ‘that apply simultaneously to sexuality and nature, ecology, environment, and animals – such as fluidity, intimacy, kinship, porosity, and toxicity’ (Seymour, ‘Queer Ecologies and Queer Environmentalisms’ 111)

Miasmatic Nature. Industrial Smellscapes and Environmental Pollution in the Poetry of Joris-Karl Huysmans and Emile Verhaeren (1880-1895)

International audienceIndustrial work directly disturbs the olfactory experience of the natural environment. The presentation will thus show how the industrial development of urban and rural spaces in western Europe deeply affected the literary representation of natural ‘smellscapes’ in late 19th-century French-language poetry. During the second half of the 19th century, the progressive industrialization of western Europe led to the subsequent sensory transformation of natural spaces, in both rural and urban settings. As natural objects (land, vegetation, animal life, bodies of water, etc.) were the first victims of the industrialization process, the sensory experience of the natural environment became tainted by industrial practices, often in the form of noxious fumes or foul gases. Still, while industrial smells threatened the integrity of natural smellscapes, they also allowed for better awareness of natural smells as forms of intangible heritage. As such, poetical writing of the time often uses olfactory descriptions and imagery as potent literary devices to examine the idea of ‘modernity’ itself, its swift and inescapable pace, and how it can endanger vulnerable sensoria, on both aesthetic and political grounds. The presentation will cross close readings of J.-K. Huysmans and E. Verhaeren’s poetical works with medical and historical sources to better demonstrate how collective concerns with industrial smells are not exclusively a matter of workers’ rights and public health. Olfactory pollution and its impact on smellscapes necessarily raises the question of the historicity of our own intangible sensory experiences, as well as their possible conservation through literary means. As the development of industrial work in 19th-century Europe actively participated in the emergence of our current climate crisis, the presentation will highlight how the literary and cultural consideration of ‘working’ smells – whether pleasant or unpleasant – is equally a matter of aïsthésis and politics

Interprétation littéraire et sciences cognitives (dir. Françoise Lavocat, 2016)

International audienceReview of the collective volume Interprétation littéraire et sciences cognitives (ed. François Lavocat, Hermann, 2016).Recension de l'ouvrage collectif Interprétation littéraire et sciences cognitives, textes réunis et présentés par Françoise Lavocat (Hermann, 2016)