Abstract
The introduction begins with Valtesse de la Bigne’s critical response to La Dame aux camélias, then introduces Céleste de Chabrillan and Liane de Pougy, the two other courtesan writers examined in this book. After a brief overview of the male discourse on demi-mondaines against which these women wrote, it examines the three writers’ responses to Nana. The introduction summarizes Peter Brooks, Charles Bernheimer, and Rachel Mesch’s critical readings of Zola’s work and introduces de Pougy’s engagement with his novel.
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Notes
- 1.
The demi-mondaine is a woman who belongs to the “demi-monde,” roughly translated as the “half world” (and sometimes translated as the “underworld”). The term “describes a class of Second Empire men and women who imitated the lifestyles of the nobility. These women looked aristocratic, lived in luxury and were supported by nouveaux riches men looking to demonstrate their own recent increase in social standing and hegemony. Though most contemporary and historical critics conceptualize the demi-monde as a society of flashy, status-seeking prostitutes, critics in the 1870s conceived it as a group of male and females arrivistes on the margins of society who sought to imitate the very haut monde [high society] that would not admit them into their elite circle” (“Classification” 224).
- 2.
Yolaine de la Bigne credits de la Bigne with authorship of the preface (219).
- 3.
See Sullivan, “Pour nous, rien que la raillerie” (195).
- 4.
See Sullivan, “Cautériser la plaie” (247).
- 5.
In 1840s France, the “lorette,” a less elite predecessor of the demi-mondaine, “denoted a kept woman who lived in relative luxury in the new apartment buildings constructed near Notre-Dame de Lorette” (“Cautériser” 248).
- 6.
When used as a noun, the word means “beast,” but when used as an adjective, it means “idiot.”
- 7.
Her protagonist in L’Insaisissable—one notable exception—is christened with her surname in tribute to a winning horse after a memorable race that recalls Chap. 11 of Nana.
- 8.
I have partially cited here a comment made by the anonymous reader of this manuscript.
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Sullivan, C. (2016). Introduction. In: The Evolution of the French Courtesan Novel. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59709-0_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59709-0_1
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