Main entry:

Gordon, Rae Beth, 1940-

Title & Author:

Ornament, fantasy, and desire in nineteenth-century French literature / Rae Beth Gordon.

Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, ©1992.

Description:

xviii, 288 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Notes:
Spine title: Ornament, fantasy & desire in nineteenth-century French literature.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-279) and index.
The enchanted hand : Schlegel's arabesque in Nerval -- Lace as textual metaphor in Nerval's Sylvie -- Trills, frills, and decorative frames for the object of desire -- The evil eye : ornamental vision as the sublime -- Trompe l'oeil in the poems of Mallarmé -- Aboli bibelot? : excess, void, and objectless desire -- Ornament and hysteria : Huysmans and Rachilde.

Summary:

In this examination of the role of ornament in nineteenth-century French literature, Rae Beth Gordon shows that ornament, far from being a simple accessory, raises problems that are at the very heart of aesthetic experience: limits and their transgression, illusion and seduction, pleasure and tension, harmony and confusion, excess and marginality. After placing texts by Nerval, Gautier, Mallarme, Huysmans, and Rachilde within the context of the history and techniques of.
The decorative arts, she reveals in these works the powerful role played by decorative figurations of syntax, diction, and composition. Gordon's detailed textual analyses yield spatial parallels with specific ornamental configurations (interlace, arabesque, decorative frame, horror vacui, trompe l'oeil). These patterns are then studied in relation to a dynamics of desire. Ornament, taken as the site of desire and illuminated by the theories of Charcot, Clerambault.
Freud, Winnicott, and Lacan, highlights important differences between romanticism, symbolism, and decadence. Not only does the author relate ornament to artistic representations of the sublime, the grotesque, and hysteria, but she also reveals that the function of ornament in literature anticipated psychiatric and aesthetic research on decorative form in the fin de siecle.

Resources:
Table of contents
Table of contents
Publisher description

ISBN:

0691069271 (cl ; acid-free paper)
9780691069272 (cl ; acid-free paper)

Subject:

French literature 19th century History and criticism.
French language 19th century Figures of speech.
Psychoanalysis and literature France.
Fantasy in literature.
Desire in literature.
Psychoanalysis and literature.
Désir dans la littérature.
Fantasmes dans la littérature.
Français (Langue) 19e siècle Figures de rhétorique.
Littérature française 19e siècle Histoire et critique.
Psychanalyse et littérature.
Psychanalyse et littérature France.
French language Figures of speech.
French literature.
Französisch
Literatur
Ornament
Letterkunde.
Frans.
Ornamentiek.
Fantasmes Dans la littérature.
Désir Dans la littérature.
Décoration Dans la littérature.
Imagination Dans la littérature.
Littérature française 19e siècle Thèmes, motifs.
Français (langue) 19e siècle Figures de rhétorique.
France.
French language Figures of speech 19th century
French literature History and criticism 19th century

Form/genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Added entries:

Ornament, fantasy & desire in nineteenth-century French literature.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 73768
Call No.: ID PLS; ID:92-B1823
Status: Available