Read more
The thirteen essays in this volume, based on selected papers given at the Second Annual Conference of the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes (2003), explore the relationships between symbolic, monetary and literary currencies in nineteenth-century France. Essays focus on the sometimes surprising treatment of capitalism and commodity culture in the works of Mallarmé, Zola and Huysmans; the transfer and borrowing of economic and literary commodities, names, and concepts in nineteenth-century culture, from Flora Tristan's July Monarchy to Schwob's fin-de-siècle moment; and the interplay between wealth and identity, and commerce and globalisation, in the writings of Hugo, Janin, and Balzac. While it is widely acknowledged that the theme of money is central to nineteenth-century literature, this volume is innovative in tracing the variation, breadth and ubiquity of the idea of currencies in the cultural imaginary of the epoch.
List of contents
Contents: Sarah Capitanio/Lisa Downing/Paul Rowe/Nicholas White: Introduction - Diana Holmes: Novels of adultery: Paul Bourget, Daniel Lesueur and what women read in the 1880s and 1890s - David Baguley: Le Capital de Zola: le fétichisme de la monnaie dans L'Argent - Carmen K. Mayer-Robin: Carcass or currency? Marketing ptomaines in Huysmans' En rade - Damian Catani: Capitalism reviewed: the perspectives of Villiers, Zola and Mallarmé - Máire Fedelma Cross: To beg, steal or borrow: alternative money schemes in Flora Tristan's July Monarchy France - Katherine Lunn-Rockliffe: 'Intérêt et principal': nineteenth-century borrowings of La Fontaine's 'La Cigale et la Fourmi' - Michael G.Kelly: Mut(e)ability: uniqueness, equivalence, and human agency in Schwob's Dialogues d'utopie - Fiona Cox: Money and identity in Les Misérables - Allan H. Pasco: The Tangible and the intangible in Balzac's Le Curé de Tours - Laurence M. Porter: 'The Great French Novel': realistic idealism in Les Misérables - Andrew Watts: An exercise in international relations, or the travelling salesman in Touraine: Balzac's L'Illustre Gaudissart - Marshall C. Olds: Globalisation and 'la pièce de cent sous': Balzac's nation-state - François Kerlouegan: 'A vendre!' La Monarchie de Juillet dans les contes de Jules Janin.
About the author
The Editors: Sarah Capitanio BA, Ph.D. (Manchester), is Principal Lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton and has published on nineteenth- and twentieth-century French fiction.
Lisa Downing M.A. (London) DPhil (Oxford), is a Reader at Queen Mary, University of London, and has published on sexuality in literary and psychological writings.
Paul Rowe BA, Ph.D. (Birmingham), is a Lecturer at the University of Leeds and has published on French intellectual history.
Nicholas White M.A., Ph.D. (Cambridge), is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and has published on marriage and the family in French fiction.
