Modernity and revolution in late nineteenth-century France

Bringing together contributions by scholars from the United States, Canada, and Europe, this work deals with the literary and artistic productions of the French Second Empire and the Third Republic along with their historical ramifications. The writers and artists whose works are analyzed here sought in highly self-conscious ways to revolutionize the traditional practices of their art, at times looking to the future for their inspiration and at times seeking it in the. Past. This collection attempts to elucidate this experimentation and its cultural implications. The first set of essays, under the heading "Fins-de-siecle," examines works by Huysmans, Villiers de l'isle-Adam, Jules Verne, and Rachilde. Focusing on such matters as gender, technology and its impact on aesthetico-philosophical problems, irony, and the definition of modernism, these studies point out provocative parallels between the end of the last century and those of our. Own so-called postmodern times. The second group of essays derives its unity not from the study of a single genre, but from a common interest in voice and dialogue. From an analysis of the prophetic utterances that link the texts in Flaubert's Trois contes to an examination of the connections between Baudelaire's and Gautier's writings on makeup and art, each essay here underscores the importance of dialogism and context. The last set of essays looks at the way the past. Is "written" by literary historians, governments, novelists, and polemicists. Focusing on such writers as Hugo, Zola, Valles, Drumont, Mery, and Gyp, the contributors lead readers to understand some of the ways in which literary reputations and linguistic classifications, anti-Semitism, and historical events can be manufactured and manipulated. Selected from papers presented at the fifteenth annual Colloquium in Nineteenth-Century French Studies held at the University of. New Hampshire in 1989, these essays reflect not only the broad spectrum of interests that characterizes contemporary scholarly endeavor, but also the diversity of theoretical views and critical approaches that is the hallmark of late twentieth-century scholarship.