Realism and Revolution Balzac, Stendhal, Zola and the Performances of History
Realism and Revolution: Balzac, Stendhal, Zola and the Performances of History

Sandy Petrey here looks at the emergence of nineteenth-century French realism in the light of the concept of speech acts as defined by J. L. Austin and as exemplified by the history of the French Revolution. Through analysis of the techniques of representation in works by Balzac, Stendhal, and Zola,...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. Verfasser: Petrey, Sandy (VerfasserIn)
Format: Elektronisch E-Book
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: Ithaca, NY Cornell University Press [2018]
Schlagworte:
Zola, Émile > 1840-1902
Zola, Émile > 1840-1902 > Germinal
Balzac, Honoré de > 1799-1850
Balzac, Honoré de > 1799-1850 > Le père Goriot
Stendhal > 1783-1842
Stendhal > 1783-1842 > Le rouge et le noir
West European History
LITERARY CRITICISM / European / French
French fiction > 19th century > History and criticism
Historical fiction, French > History and criticism
Realism in literature
Realismus
Revolution > Motiv
Online-Zugang:DE-1046
DE-859
DE-860
DE-739
DE-473
DE-1043
DE-858
URL des Erstveröffentlichers
Zusammenfassung:Sandy Petrey here looks at the emergence of nineteenth-century French realism in the light of the concept of speech acts as defined by J. L. Austin and as exemplified by the history of the French Revolution. Through analysis of the techniques of representation in works by Balzac, Stendhal, and Zola, Petrey suggests that the expression of a truth depends on the same collective forces necessary to change a regime.According to Petrey, political legitimacy in the Revolution, the Empire, and the Restoration was established by means of a series of demonstrations that what words say cannot be interpreted without reference to the community to which they speak. Petrey first discusses the creation of France's National Assembly in 1789 as a foundational example of how speech acts can bring about historical transformation. He then challenges the most powerful twentieth-century assault on realist aesthetics, Roland Barthes's S/Z, and also considers the views of such contemporary critics as Jacques Derrida, Barbara Johnson, and Stanley Fish. During the Revolution, Petrey says, statements of truth were not descriptions of what was, but rather exhortations to produce what was not. Nineteenth-century French fiction represents in literary form a similar collectively authorized linguistic performance; the "real" in realism comes from representing facts not as they are in themselves but as they are produced and rejected in society. In the course of illuminating readings of three central realist works-Balzac's Pere Goriot, Stendhal's The Red and the Black, and Zola's Germinal-Petrey takes the position that the dilemmas of representation, far from being one of realism's blind spots, figure among its major narrative subjects
Beschreibung:Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jul 2019)
Beschreibung:1 online resource
ISBN:9781501724411
DOI:10.7591/9781501724411

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