Le Monstre, le singe et le fœtus: tératogonie et décadence dans l’Europe fin-de-siècle by Évanghélia Stead
2006; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 101; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/mlr.2006.0216
ISSN2222-4319
Autores Tópico(s)Renaissance Literature and Culture
ResumoMLR, IOI.2, 2oo6 541 original isRussell Cousins's provocative analysis of cinematic adaptations of Zola's novels. The finalmain section, on love and death, finds Claudine Chambost exploring attitudes to love in Une page d'amour, and Veronique Cnockaert perceptively linking death in Zola to gender, representational practices, and the economy. The volume comes full circle with Denise Merkle's insightful overview of Zola and translation studies. The editor's stated goal, 'to demonstrate, above all, the interdisciplinary nature of current work on Zola' (p. 5), is fully realized. Inevitably her claim that 'all of the articles [. . .] represent a new approach to Zola Studies' (p. 6) ismore contentious. Penrod and Bonnermeier, for instance, are heavily indebted to the excellent work al ready carried out by Rachel Bowlby, Philippe Hamon, and Michael Miller. That said, there are genuinely innovative contributions here, all given sharp focus by the editor's clear and succinct introduction. Though primarily of interest to Zola specialists, this volume, if read selectively, will also be of benefit to undergraduates. NEW HALL, CAMBRIDGE DAMIAN CATANI Le Monstre, le singe et le fcetus: teratogonie et decadence dans l'Europe fin-de-siecle. By EVANGHELIASTEAD. (Histoire des idees et critique litteraire, 4I3). Geneva: Droz. 2004. 602 pp. SwF 8o. ISBN 2-600-0092I-3. In the mundus inversus of the fin-de-siecle, where artifice ousted nature, and formany (far too many) writers, artists, and fairground showmen the ugly was beautiful, in vented or commercialized monsters or freaks pullulated more than in the preceding millennia. Evanghelia Stead picks her way surefootedly through the deformations, amalgams, and cross-breeds, via the Babel of hyperbolic voices pro and contra Deca dentism. She links hybrid with hubris: wilfully misshapen creatures are anti-Genesis, anti-God, so that instead of a theogony we are offered (in Jankelevitch's coinage) a teratogonie. She is equally interested in the inspiration for monstrifications and the dislocated and reshaped language or images which embody such visions. Neologisms, especially, which violate decorous lexis or syntax, and slang (anti-establishment) are key instances. In Gamiani, possibly by Musset, a nun is raped by an ape: 'embes tialisee, devirginee, ensinginee' (quoted on p. 365). Decadence was resolutely anti classical. Of course, small fry are a palatable dish, but we miss the big fish. This book hauls in multitudes of writers/artists, very many of them unknown tomost. As Stead stresses, the Decadent period (which at times she stretches from the I830s to the I930s) can itself be construed, like the civilization it deplores, as having a crescendo, a plateau, and a dying fall. Like Marx, she is alert to the phenomenon that any attempt at innovation falls easily into self-parody or new corsets: 'Fait d'extreme civilisation, la Decadence porte en elle sa propre derision et son declin' (p. 23). Her frame of reference is pan-European. It is probably unsurprising that Naturalists anywhere, focusing on themediocre, should so often have been tempted to themacabrely exceptional. Stead starts with mythological beasts such as the chimera, harpies, sphinx, and soon shows the misogynistic exploitation of these: women aremonsters (Baudelaire: 'La femme est naturelle, c'est-'a-dire abominable' (inMon coeurmis ainu)), or themore voracious part of composite ones. Many male fin-de-siecle artists or writers did the dirty on women. No doubt a rutting imagination operated, which, even if it feels horror at sex, is still fascinated by it. It is not just women who sense that many a dentated vagina lurks behind this obsession. These monstermongers were trying, however, not only to sell, but also to stretch limits and categories, to come up with something new. Naturally, the sheer proliferation segued into mass production. 542 Reviews Backed by selected theories from contemporary science, 'pour laDecadence ecrire c'est reflter les d6bris d'une creation en faillite' (p. 233). For example, Ernst Haeckel's lavishly illustrated volumes on natural monsters, lusus naturae, sports. Cultural pes simism embraced foetuses, deformed, of course, as pregnant women themselves were in some male eyes. 'Dans sa derision du processus createur [literary or biological], la Decadence a trouve dans le fcetus un double narcissique de sa peur de l'impuissance, mais aussi un moyen de...
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