Daudet, James, and the Revision of the Nineteenth-Century Wifely Adultery Plot
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2020.i15.628Keywords:
Henry James, Alphonse Daudet, adultery novel, La petite paroisse, The Golden BowlAbstract
Although it is widely known that Henry James took inspiration from Alphonse Daudet’s L’Evangéliste (1883) for The Bostonians, and from Numa Roumestan (1881) for “The Liar,” the influence of the French novelist on James’s late fiction is still far from being fully grasped or acknowledged. In this essay I will read Daudet’s La petite paroisse. Moeurs conjugales (1895) together with James’s The Golden Bowl (1904) and discuss the similar ways in which these two works revised the nineteenth-century form of the “wifely adultery novel” (Overton 2002) within their respective literary and cultural contexts. My argument is that they challenged both the social stigmatization attached to the adulteress and what were taken to be ‘natural’ relations between husband and wife, and within the family circle.
References
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Camden, Jennifer. The Other Woman: Secondary Heroines in the Nineteenth-Century British and American Novel. 2005. Ohio State University, Electronic Thesis or Dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1116879934&disposition=inline. Last visited 24/10/2019.
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Francescato, Simone. “Eccentric Naturalists: Henry James and the Provençal Novelist Alphonse Daudet.” Provence and the British Imagination. Edited by Claire Davison et al. Milano: Ledizioni, 2013. 119-130.
James, Henry. A Life in Letters. Edited by Philip Horne. London: Viking Press, 1999.
---. Letters Volume III 1883-1895. Edited by Leon Edel. Cambridge MA: The Belknap Press, 1980.
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Leckie, Barbara. Culture and Adultery: The Novel, the Newspaper, and the Law, 1857-1914. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
Lloyd, Rosemary. Closer and Closer Apart: Jealousy in Literature. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Matthiessen, F.O. Henry James: The Major Phase. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963.
Melison-Hirschwald, Gabrielle. “La représentation de la famille dans les interviews de Daudet.” Le Petit chose 103 (2014): 43-55.
Monceaux, Paul. “Causerie littéraire. La ‘Petite paroisse’ de M. Alphonse Daudet.” Revue bleue 3 (1895): 246-250.
Overton, Bill. Fictions of Female Adultery 1684-1890. Theories and Circumtexts. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
---. The Novel of Female Adultery: Love and Gender in Continental European Fiction 1830-1900. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996.
Owen, Elizabeth. “‘The Given Appearance’ of Charlotte Verver.” Essays in Criticism 13.4 (1963): 364-374.
Powers, Lyall H. “James’s Debt to Alphonse Daudet.” Comparative Literature 24.2 (1972): 150-162.
Righter, William. American Memory in Henry James. Void and Value. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
Roche, Alphonse V. Alphonse Daudet. Boston: Twayne, 1976.
Sachs, Murray. The Career of Alphonse Daudet: A Critical Study. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1965.
Stevens, Hugh. “Sexuality and the Aesthetic in The Golden Bowl.” Henry James Review 14.1 (1993): 55-71.
“Three French Novels.” Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art 79 (1895): 261-62.
Tintner, Adeline R. The Cosmopolitan World of Henry James. An Intertextual Study. Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1991.
---. The Pop World of Henry James: From Fairy Tales to Science Fiction. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1996.
Vandèrem, Fernand. “Notes et impressions. Autour de la Petite paroisse.” Revue bleue 3 (1895): 156-158.
White, Nicholas. “Paternal Perspectives on Divorce in Alphonse Daudet’s Rose et Ninette (1892).” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 30.1/2 (Fall-Winter 2001-2002): 131-147.
Bell, Millicent. Meaning in Henry James. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.
Camden, Jennifer. The Other Woman: Secondary Heroines in the Nineteenth-Century British and American Novel. 2005. Ohio State University, Electronic Thesis or Dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1116879934&disposition=inline. Last visited 24/10/2019.
Campagnoli, Ruggero. “Pierre et Jean: Maupassant simbolista.” Simbolismo e naturalismo: un confronto. Edited by Sergio Cigada and Marisa Verna. Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2006. 333-348.
Cerullo, Maria. Alphonse Daudet, romancier de la famille. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2016.
Daudet, Alphonse. La petite paroisse. Moeurs conjugales. Paris: Lemerre, 1895.
---. Œuvres, vol. 3. Edited by Roger Ripoll. Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1994.
---. The Little Parish Church. Introduction by William Peterfield Trent. Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1899.
Dufief, Anne-Simone. Dictionnaire Alphonse Daudet. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2019.
Edel, Leon and Adeline R. Tintner. The Library of Henry James. Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1987.
Francescato, Simone. “Eccentric Naturalists: Henry James and the Provençal Novelist Alphonse Daudet.” Provence and the British Imagination. Edited by Claire Davison et al. Milano: Ledizioni, 2013. 119-130.
James, Henry. A Life in Letters. Edited by Philip Horne. London: Viking Press, 1999.
---. Letters Volume III 1883-1895. Edited by Leon Edel. Cambridge MA: The Belknap Press, 1980.
---. Literary Criticism: French Writers, Other European Writers, Prefaces to the New York Edition. Edited by Mark Wilson and Leon Edel. New York: Library of America, 1984.
---. Novels 1903-1911: The Ambassadors, The Golden Bowl, The Outcry. Edited by Ross Posnock. New York: Library of America, 2010.
---. The Complete Notebooks. Edited by Leon Edel and Lyall H. Powers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Joyce, Simon. Modernism and Naturalism in British and Irish Fiction, 1880-1930. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Kimball, Jean. “Henry James’s Last Portrait of a Lady: Charlotte Stant in The Golden Bowl.” American Literature 28.4 (1957): 449-468.
Leckie, Barbara. Culture and Adultery: The Novel, the Newspaper, and the Law, 1857-1914. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
Lloyd, Rosemary. Closer and Closer Apart: Jealousy in Literature. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Matthiessen, F.O. Henry James: The Major Phase. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963.
Melison-Hirschwald, Gabrielle. “La représentation de la famille dans les interviews de Daudet.” Le Petit chose 103 (2014): 43-55.
Monceaux, Paul. “Causerie littéraire. La ‘Petite paroisse’ de M. Alphonse Daudet.” Revue bleue 3 (1895): 246-250.
Overton, Bill. Fictions of Female Adultery 1684-1890. Theories and Circumtexts. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
---. The Novel of Female Adultery: Love and Gender in Continental European Fiction 1830-1900. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996.
Owen, Elizabeth. “‘The Given Appearance’ of Charlotte Verver.” Essays in Criticism 13.4 (1963): 364-374.
Powers, Lyall H. “James’s Debt to Alphonse Daudet.” Comparative Literature 24.2 (1972): 150-162.
Righter, William. American Memory in Henry James. Void and Value. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
Roche, Alphonse V. Alphonse Daudet. Boston: Twayne, 1976.
Sachs, Murray. The Career of Alphonse Daudet: A Critical Study. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1965.
Stevens, Hugh. “Sexuality and the Aesthetic in The Golden Bowl.” Henry James Review 14.1 (1993): 55-71.
“Three French Novels.” Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art 79 (1895): 261-62.
Tintner, Adeline R. The Cosmopolitan World of Henry James. An Intertextual Study. Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1991.
---. The Pop World of Henry James: From Fairy Tales to Science Fiction. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1996.
Vandèrem, Fernand. “Notes et impressions. Autour de la Petite paroisse.” Revue bleue 3 (1895): 156-158.
White, Nicholas. “Paternal Perspectives on Divorce in Alphonse Daudet’s Rose et Ninette (1892).” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 30.1/2 (Fall-Winter 2001-2002): 131-147.
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2020-06-01
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