of dream interpretation and the efforts he made to disguise this debt. The usual explanation for those efforts (to which Frieden devotes only one line) is that Freud wanted psychoanalysis to be accepted as a science, not dismissed as "Jewish science." What is new here is the claim that Freud felt an "anxiety of influence" toward his Talmudic precursors and wished above all to preserve his own status as an original thinker. If it were fleshed out more fully, this essay would be a significant contribution to the "historically informed understanding" of psychoanalysis called for by Frederick Crews (Skeptical Engagements [NY: Oxford, 1986] 47). The editor, Carol Schreier Rupprecht, rounds out the book's diachronic and cross-cultural approach with a learned article on dreaming in the Renaissance. She focuses first on the life and work of Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576), who is known today chiefly as a mathematician. After discussing Cardano's belief that dreams provide a kind of natural divination into the future, Rupprecht turns, via Foucault's Madness and Civilization, to a discussion of historical attitudes towards dreams. She demonstrates that the association between dreams and divination came to be replaced by a medical model that associated dreams with insanity and culminated in the work of Freud. Overall, this book is valuable for the questions it raises and for the richness of the material its contributors confront. Readers who are drawn to Jung's way of thinking about dreams will enjoy most of the essays here. Readers with an interest in other schools of thought (Freudian, Kleinian, Self-psychological, Ego-psychological) would do well to consult the important clinical articles collected in Essential Papers on Dreams, edited by Melvin R. Lansky (NYU Press, 1992). In any event, students of literature will sympathize with Rupprecht's open-minded appeal for further investigation of "dreaming's contribution to creativity" and an end to the domination of dream theory by "medical pathology or theologically (or psychologically) based versions of spirituality" (129).
{"title":"Holocaust Visions: Surrealism and Existentialism in the Poetry of Paul Celan by Clarise Samuels (review)","authors":"S. Scaff","doi":"10.2307/1347923","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/1347923","url":null,"abstract":"of dream interpretation and the efforts he made to disguise this debt. The usual explanation for those efforts (to which Frieden devotes only one line) is that Freud wanted psychoanalysis to be accepted as a science, not dismissed as \"Jewish science.\" What is new here is the claim that Freud felt an \"anxiety of influence\" toward his Talmudic precursors and wished above all to preserve his own status as an original thinker. If it were fleshed out more fully, this essay would be a significant contribution to the \"historically informed understanding\" of psychoanalysis called for by Frederick Crews (Skeptical Engagements [NY: Oxford, 1986] 47). The editor, Carol Schreier Rupprecht, rounds out the book's diachronic and cross-cultural approach with a learned article on dreaming in the Renaissance. She focuses first on the life and work of Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576), who is known today chiefly as a mathematician. After discussing Cardano's belief that dreams provide a kind of natural divination into the future, Rupprecht turns, via Foucault's Madness and Civilization, to a discussion of historical attitudes towards dreams. She demonstrates that the association between dreams and divination came to be replaced by a medical model that associated dreams with insanity and culminated in the work of Freud. Overall, this book is valuable for the questions it raises and for the richness of the material its contributors confront. Readers who are drawn to Jung's way of thinking about dreams will enjoy most of the essays here. Readers with an interest in other schools of thought (Freudian, Kleinian, Self-psychological, Ego-psychological) would do well to consult the important clinical articles collected in Essential Papers on Dreams, edited by Melvin R. Lansky (NYU Press, 1992). In any event, students of literature will sympathize with Rupprecht's open-minded appeal for further investigation of \"dreaming's contribution to creativity\" and an end to the domination of dream theory by \"medical pathology or theologically (or psychologically) based versions of spirituality\" (129).","PeriodicalId":326714,"journal":{"name":"Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122612206","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mirbeau's voice thundered in Les Grimaces (1883-1884) against the Jewish segment of the French population. During the Dreyfus affair of the 1890s, he became nonetheless an ardent Dreyfusard who reversed his sympathies. To those who doubted his credibility as a journalist, Mirbeau responded with recantations or "Palinodies" (1898). A century later, E.M. Cioran's death in 1995 led French papers to reveal the nature of his writings of the 1930s. His "youthful extremism" did not augur well for the Jews, or his own glory. Having tasted exile, he became later in life an uncompromising skeptic. Exile taught Cioran to understand the Jews better. In "Un Peuple de solitaires" he replaced his youthful anti-Jewish stance with a penetrating essay on the Jewish nation. This article explores how two fin de siècle writers courageously tamed their anti-Semitism and reversed their sympathies in favor of the Jews.
{"title":"(Anti-)Semitism 1890s/1990s: Octave Mirbeau and E.M. Cioran","authors":"Aleksandra Gruzińska","doi":"10.2307/1348152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/1348152","url":null,"abstract":"Mirbeau's voice thundered in Les Grimaces (1883-1884) against the Jewish segment of the French population. During the Dreyfus affair of the 1890s, he became nonetheless an ardent Dreyfusard who reversed his sympathies. To those who doubted his credibility as a journalist, Mirbeau responded with recantations or \"Palinodies\" (1898). A century later, E.M. Cioran's death in 1995 led French papers to reveal the nature of his writings of the 1930s. His \"youthful extremism\" did not augur well for the Jews, or his own glory. Having tasted exile, he became later in life an uncompromising skeptic. Exile taught Cioran to understand the Jews better. In \"Un Peuple de solitaires\" he replaced his youthful anti-Jewish stance with a penetrating essay on the Jewish nation. This article explores how two fin de siècle writers courageously tamed their anti-Semitism and reversed their sympathies in favor of the Jews.","PeriodicalId":326714,"journal":{"name":"Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114512452","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Who, among the poets of the Pacific Northwest, speaks for the environment? The most obvious answer is a rhetorical question: Who doesn't? But one must be careful about terms here. Poets of the Pacific Northwest (from Alaska through Oregon and including Idaho and perhaps Montana as well as the appropriate Canadian provinces) are often, though not always, properly described as "regionalists," and regionalists are perhaps inevitably concerned with the environment, at least in the loosely used sense of the term-their "surroundings." They often reflect in their work a broad range of mythic (or stereotypical?) visions of the West: wide open spaces, Big Sky, the last frontier, rugged individualism, distance, isolation, harsh beauty. The landscape shapes, sometimes warps, character, and that has been a powerful motif in Western literature, including that of the Pacific Northwest.
{"title":"David Wagoner's Environmental Advocacy","authors":"Ron Mcfarland","doi":"10.1353/RMR.1990.0046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/RMR.1990.0046","url":null,"abstract":"Who, among the poets of the Pacific Northwest, speaks for the environment? The most obvious answer is a rhetorical question: Who doesn't? But one must be careful about terms here. Poets of the Pacific Northwest (from Alaska through Oregon and including Idaho and perhaps Montana as well as the appropriate Canadian provinces) are often, though not always, properly described as \"regionalists,\" and regionalists are perhaps inevitably concerned with the environment, at least in the loosely used sense of the term-their \"surroundings.\" They often reflect in their work a broad range of mythic (or stereotypical?) visions of the West: wide open spaces, Big Sky, the last frontier, rugged individualism, distance, isolation, harsh beauty. The landscape shapes, sometimes warps, character, and that has been a powerful motif in Western literature, including that of the Pacific Northwest.","PeriodicalId":326714,"journal":{"name":"Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122059333","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Un monde à l' usage des Demoiselles by Paule Constant (review)","authors":"G. Adamson","doi":"10.1353/rmr.1989.0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/rmr.1989.0025","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":326714,"journal":{"name":"Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116995928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cross Hair","authors":"Fritz H. König","doi":"10.1353/rmr.1980.0034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/rmr.1980.0034","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":326714,"journal":{"name":"Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129722812","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I personaggi di Pirandello sono variatissimi: di tutte le condizioni, di tutti i ceti e in situazioni di tutti i generi. Ma quasi tutti condividono 1'ansia di valutare il significato della loro vita, di scrutare se stessi e il mondo che li circonda, per poi o rassegnarcisi o tentare di sfuggire alle circostanze in cui si dibattono nella speranza di trovare una migliore giustificazione alla loro vita. Nel romanzo I/ Fu Mattia Pascal il protagonista tenta la via dell'evasione dopo una serie di circostanze fortuite che gli offrono la possibilita di abbandonare un ambiente piccino e maligno, una moglie che non ama e una responsabilita finanziaria che non riesce a risolvere. Spera di rifarsi una vita sotto un altro nome, senza piu catene e libero da tutto e da tutti: "senza pii il fardello del mio passato e con l'avvenire dinanzi che avrei potuto foggiarmi a piacer mio." Ma l'ebbrezza di questa nuova vita comincia a svanire in una nebbiosa serata milanese quando, avendo finora evitato di stringere nuovi nodi di amicizia, la solitudine lo induce a cercare la compagnia di un cagnolino infreddolito; ma poi capisce che, comprandolo, avrebbe dovuto pagarne la tassa e cio avrebbe significato gia "un lieve intacco" alla sua liberta. Ma il non comprarlo sottolinea anche i limiti che questa stessa liberta gli impone.... Comincia qui la lenta disgregazione delle speranze avute dal suo sogno di ribellione: piccole cose che si susseguono gli fanno sentire il vuoto della solitudine acquistata, inevitabilmente, con la sua liberta. Finche un giorno si decide a vivere a pensione in casa di una famiglia a Roma per riaccoppiarsi, piu da spettatore che da
皮兰德罗的角色在各种各样的环境中，在各种各样的环境中，在各种各样的环境中。但大多数人都有一种共同的焦虑，那就是评估自己生命的意义，审视自己和周围的世界，然后要么辞职，要么试图逃避他们所处的环境，希望找到更好的生活理由。在小说《I/ Fu Mattia Pascal》中，主角在经历了一系列偶然的情况后，试图逃避现实，这些情况让他有机会离开一个小而邪恶的环境，一个他不爱的妻子，一个他无法解决的经济责任。他希望以另一个名字重新开始他的生活，摆脱束缚，摆脱一切和所有人:“没有我过去的虔诚负担，没有我可以随心所欲地塑造的未来。”但在一个雾蒙蒙的米兰夜晚，这种新生活的兴奋开始消退。但后来他意识到，如果他买了它，他就得付钱，这就意味着他的自由受到了轻微的打击。但不购买也强调了这种自由对他的限制。从这里开始，他的反叛梦所带来的希望逐渐破灭:一些小事情接一件，使他感到孤独的空虚，这是他的自由不可避免地带来的。直到有一天，他决定退休后住在罗马的一个家庭的房子里，作为一个旁观者而不是给予者
{"title":"La Rassegnazione e Ribellione dei Personaggi Pirandelliani","authors":"A. Kelly","doi":"10.1353/RMR.1975.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/RMR.1975.0017","url":null,"abstract":"I personaggi di Pirandello sono variatissimi: di tutte le condizioni, di tutti i ceti e in situazioni di tutti i generi. Ma quasi tutti condividono 1'ansia di valutare il significato della loro vita, di scrutare se stessi e il mondo che li circonda, per poi o rassegnarcisi o tentare di sfuggire alle circostanze in cui si dibattono nella speranza di trovare una migliore giustificazione alla loro vita. Nel romanzo I/ Fu Mattia Pascal il protagonista tenta la via dell'evasione dopo una serie di circostanze fortuite che gli offrono la possibilita di abbandonare un ambiente piccino e maligno, una moglie che non ama e una responsabilita finanziaria che non riesce a risolvere. Spera di rifarsi una vita sotto un altro nome, senza piu catene e libero da tutto e da tutti: \"senza pii il fardello del mio passato e con l'avvenire dinanzi che avrei potuto foggiarmi a piacer mio.\" Ma l'ebbrezza di questa nuova vita comincia a svanire in una nebbiosa serata milanese quando, avendo finora evitato di stringere nuovi nodi di amicizia, la solitudine lo induce a cercare la compagnia di un cagnolino infreddolito; ma poi capisce che, comprandolo, avrebbe dovuto pagarne la tassa e cio avrebbe significato gia \"un lieve intacco\" alla sua liberta. Ma il non comprarlo sottolinea anche i limiti che questa stessa liberta gli impone.... Comincia qui la lenta disgregazione delle speranze avute dal suo sogno di ribellione: piccole cose che si susseguono gli fanno sentire il vuoto della solitudine acquistata, inevitabilmente, con la sua liberta. Finche un giorno si decide a vivere a pensione in casa di una famiglia a Roma per riaccoppiarsi, piu da spettatore che da","PeriodicalId":326714,"journal":{"name":"Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature","volume":"208 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128408493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"William Carlos Williams, the Arts, and Literary Tradition by Peter Schmidt (review)","authors":"Jacqueline Doyle","doi":"10.1353/rmr.1989.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/rmr.1989.0009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":326714,"journal":{"name":"Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature","volume":"117 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128250212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Guises of Modesty: Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach's Female Artists by Ferrel V. Rose (review)","authors":"Sally A. Winkle","doi":"10.5860/choice.32-1410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.32-1410","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":326714,"journal":{"name":"Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128290675","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
aesthetic communication" (328). Unlike Wotdswotth, Eliot in his "fotays across 'frontiets of consciousness'" (321) sensed die mysterious and unpataphtasable meaning inherent in poetry's primitive dtumbeat. Matks clarifies Eliot's telling idea that a wotd's music rises out ofcrossed colotations—one from the odiet wotds in its immediate context, the othet from meanings and associations of the wotd in othet contexts. In the "musical" possibilities ofShakespeare's dramatic vetse, Eliot envisioned "one of the most dating conceptions ofpoetic language ever proposed" (329). Unlike Enlightenment Know-It-Alls and Postmodern Know-Nothings, Marks resides firmly in the camp of the Know-Somethings. Though he cannot espouse poststtuctutal excesses—Derrida's deconsttuctive hetmeneutics, nihilism, the death ofaesthetics, die authot, referentialiry, and the test—Matks in his Epilogue neithet ignores not distorts its innovations, as do some of its strongest suppottets, both English and American. Ofpatticulat interest ate Matks' insights into Harold Bloom and Geoffrey Hartman, celebtatots of poetic expressionism, "repelled by the dehumanizing tendencies of poststtuctutalism" (350). While litetary ideas become ever more subtle, poetic language temains a mystery. This paradox tantalizes not only poetry-lovers but egalitarian textualists who yearn to conflate undet the same linguistic laws the poetry of John Keats and die pattet of John Doe. During the great Anglophone debate, most disputants, Matks notes emphatically, sensed "that in poetry language is employed in a manner, and widi an effect, that sets it apart from all othet kinds of speech ot writing" (13). That no dieory has ever captured fully poetry's "unique essence" or the teadet's experience of its "wondrous ways" is fot Matks axiomatic. To feel poetry's "magic," however, in no way "relegates to an exercise in futility die centuries of effort to discovet, and to fotmulate in tational tetms, the means by which that powet is activated" (21). Taming the Chaos is a mastetpiece of evaluative histoty, the refined teal thing that quickens the serious student once again to the discipline, beauty, and worth of litetary scholarship—itself no mean tarnet of the chaos, ^r
{"title":"Weep Not for Me: Women, Ballads, and Infanticide in Early Modern Scotland by Deborah A. Symonds (review)","authors":"Gaye McCollum","doi":"10.2307/1348192","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/1348192","url":null,"abstract":"aesthetic communication\" (328). Unlike Wotdswotth, Eliot in his \"fotays across 'frontiets of consciousness'\" (321) sensed die mysterious and unpataphtasable meaning inherent in poetry's primitive dtumbeat. Matks clarifies Eliot's telling idea that a wotd's music rises out ofcrossed colotations—one from the odiet wotds in its immediate context, the othet from meanings and associations of the wotd in othet contexts. In the \"musical\" possibilities ofShakespeare's dramatic vetse, Eliot envisioned \"one of the most dating conceptions ofpoetic language ever proposed\" (329). Unlike Enlightenment Know-It-Alls and Postmodern Know-Nothings, Marks resides firmly in the camp of the Know-Somethings. Though he cannot espouse poststtuctutal excesses—Derrida's deconsttuctive hetmeneutics, nihilism, the death ofaesthetics, die authot, referentialiry, and the test—Matks in his Epilogue neithet ignores not distorts its innovations, as do some of its strongest suppottets, both English and American. Ofpatticulat interest ate Matks' insights into Harold Bloom and Geoffrey Hartman, celebtatots of poetic expressionism, \"repelled by the dehumanizing tendencies of poststtuctutalism\" (350). While litetary ideas become ever more subtle, poetic language temains a mystery. This paradox tantalizes not only poetry-lovers but egalitarian textualists who yearn to conflate undet the same linguistic laws the poetry of John Keats and die pattet of John Doe. During the great Anglophone debate, most disputants, Matks notes emphatically, sensed \"that in poetry language is employed in a manner, and widi an effect, that sets it apart from all othet kinds of speech ot writing\" (13). That no dieory has ever captured fully poetry's \"unique essence\" or the teadet's experience of its \"wondrous ways\" is fot Matks axiomatic. To feel poetry's \"magic,\" however, in no way \"relegates to an exercise in futility die centuries of effort to discovet, and to fotmulate in tational tetms, the means by which that powet is activated\" (21). Taming the Chaos is a mastetpiece of evaluative histoty, the refined teal thing that quickens the serious student once again to the discipline, beauty, and worth of litetary scholarship—itself no mean tarnet of the chaos, ^r","PeriodicalId":326714,"journal":{"name":"Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128643037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Noted mainly as a "Decadent," a "Magician," an "Occultist," to cite terms used by biographer Robert Baldick in his study of the author, J.-K. Huysmans, not surprisingly, encountered skepticism on the part of literary colleagues when they learned of his conversion. Yet part of the reason for this widespread incredulity can be laid to Huysmans' own reserve, a tendency toward mystification that characterized a writer known more for his treatise on the sensualistic self-involvement of des Esseintes in A Rebours (1884) or his study of the demon-worship of Durtal in La-bas (1891). As Baldick says: "To all but his closest friends, Huysmans refused . . . to reveal the profound change of heart which he had undergone. His churchgoing, his reading of the mystics, even his oft-expressed intention of going to confession, were all explained often with a Mephistophelian smile as necessary documentation for his next novel" (181). Still, beginning with his first meeting in May 1891 with Abbe Mugnier, referred to as Abbe G6vresin in the autobiographical En Route (1895),' and continuing with the author's introduction into the Trappist monastery of Notre-Dame d'Igny in July 1892, the stirrings of Huysmans' faith were becoming increasingly more urgent. What may account for Huysmans' hesitation to commit himself to a life of contemplation was perhaps the difficulty he faced in resolving a dualism inherent in his character. Indeed, the alternating influence on Huysmans at this time of Abbe Mugnier and his orthodox religious teachings, and the defrocked Abbe Boullan with his seances in Lyons, shows how torn the author felt between the need for demonstrations of the existence of the supernatural and the acceptance of the less spectacular development of his faith. Only with the unifying of his two conflicting selves, with the silencing, the elimination, of an antagonistic double, could he accede to that serenity he claimed he wished to have. In En Route, Durtal first perceives this opposition as one between his religious aspirations and his physical demands. It is only later that he realizes that his intellectual pride and his propensity for analysis have worked to counteract God's grace. Thus it is not the insistence of the body on its pleasures and its comforts, but Satan who suggests to him his doubts and reservations. Satan becomes the evil double whose voice Durtal must still, so that he can achieve some peace and greater spiritual maturity. Yet at the outset, it is the body whose requirements must be met. Thus, before embarking for the abbey at Notre-Dame de l'Atre, Durtal, whose spiritual itinerary mirrors Huysmans' own, fills his portmanteau with vials
{"title":"Silencing the Double: the Search for God in Huysmans' En Route","authors":"R. Ziegler","doi":"10.1353/RMR.1986.0049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/RMR.1986.0049","url":null,"abstract":"Noted mainly as a \"Decadent,\" a \"Magician,\" an \"Occultist,\" to cite terms used by biographer Robert Baldick in his study of the author, J.-K. Huysmans, not surprisingly, encountered skepticism on the part of literary colleagues when they learned of his conversion. Yet part of the reason for this widespread incredulity can be laid to Huysmans' own reserve, a tendency toward mystification that characterized a writer known more for his treatise on the sensualistic self-involvement of des Esseintes in A Rebours (1884) or his study of the demon-worship of Durtal in La-bas (1891). As Baldick says: \"To all but his closest friends, Huysmans refused . . . to reveal the profound change of heart which he had undergone. His churchgoing, his reading of the mystics, even his oft-expressed intention of going to confession, were all explained often with a Mephistophelian smile as necessary documentation for his next novel\" (181). Still, beginning with his first meeting in May 1891 with Abbe Mugnier, referred to as Abbe G6vresin in the autobiographical En Route (1895),' and continuing with the author's introduction into the Trappist monastery of Notre-Dame d'Igny in July 1892, the stirrings of Huysmans' faith were becoming increasingly more urgent. What may account for Huysmans' hesitation to commit himself to a life of contemplation was perhaps the difficulty he faced in resolving a dualism inherent in his character. Indeed, the alternating influence on Huysmans at this time of Abbe Mugnier and his orthodox religious teachings, and the defrocked Abbe Boullan with his seances in Lyons, shows how torn the author felt between the need for demonstrations of the existence of the supernatural and the acceptance of the less spectacular development of his faith. Only with the unifying of his two conflicting selves, with the silencing, the elimination, of an antagonistic double, could he accede to that serenity he claimed he wished to have. In En Route, Durtal first perceives this opposition as one between his religious aspirations and his physical demands. It is only later that he realizes that his intellectual pride and his propensity for analysis have worked to counteract God's grace. Thus it is not the insistence of the body on its pleasures and its comforts, but Satan who suggests to him his doubts and reservations. Satan becomes the evil double whose voice Durtal must still, so that he can achieve some peace and greater spiritual maturity. Yet at the outset, it is the body whose requirements must be met. Thus, before embarking for the abbey at Notre-Dame de l'Atre, Durtal, whose spiritual itinerary mirrors Huysmans' own, fills his portmanteau with vials","PeriodicalId":326714,"journal":{"name":"Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128651050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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