Études et Recherches sur Théophile Gautier prosateur by Jean RicherReview by: Andrew G. GannNineteenth-Century French Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1/2 (Fall—Winter 1982—83), pp. 160-161Published by: University of Nebraska PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23536377 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 19:39

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

University of Nebraska Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toNineteenth-Century French Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.76 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 19:39:40 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

160 Nineteenth-Century French Studies

Analogies in Gautier's poetry and prose are by no means limited to imagery.

They extend to atmosphere and theme. Just as much as Mademoiselle de Maupin, the Récits fantastiques confirm this. The horror to be found in Cauchemar and the

Albertus, the dantesque imagery of Gautier's poems are evident in the tales, where

the shadow of Mephistopheles and the Romantic themes of disillusionment loom

large.

Lehigh University

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

John Van Eerde

Richer, Jean. Études et Recherches sur Théophile Gautier prosateur.

Paris: Nizet, 1981. 265 pp.

This, the first book on Gautier by the eminent Nervalien, will be of interest to

Gautier specialists and to other dix-neuvièmistes, especially those concerned with

fantastic literature, exoticism, Nerval, Balzac and Rimbaud. Etudes et recherches

brings together the product of 30 years' work on Gautier's prose (his poetry will be

treated in a later volume): alongside the studies appearing for the first time, there

are prefaces from the Club français du livre editions of Spirite and Le Roman de la

Momie of 1951 and 1952 and several articles from the intervening years. In particu

lar, we can be grateful to Professor Richer for bringing to light numerous lost or

nearly-lost articles by Gautier and some of his drawings. As the author states in his preface, he has chosen not to impose an artifical

unity, be it thematic or biographical, on these diverse studies, nor to consider

Gautier's work in its entirety. If there are some abrupt transitions, and if the

analytical component is sometimes disappointing in its brevity, it is doubtless a

result of these parameters. On the other hand, the freedom of this stance permits

and even stimulates a wealth of insights. Professor Richer shows, for example, that

beneath its surface air of dispassionate objectivity, Gautier's writing was intensely

personal: in the archaeological Roman de la Moniie, as elsewhere, his characters

carry his own personality and his descriptions reflect his own experiences in the

Middle East; the metempsychosis of Avatar is in a way his memorial to Nerval; the

vampire theme in "La Morte amoureuse" is not a simple borrowing from Mérimée

and Nodier, but an occasion for "confession indirecte".

It will come as no surprise to those familiar with Professor Richer's work that he

begins his book by situating Gautier in the tradition of the occult. He devotes his

preface to presenting the bear-costume scene from Mademoiselle de Maupin as the

transposition of an ancient ritual celebrated in the region of Tarbes. In this ceremo

ny, symbolic of the renewal of the solar cycle, a bear carries off a woman named

Rosetta to his cave, just as Gautier's Théodore, dressed as a bear, carries off Rosette

and makes love to her. Richer goes on to associate this animal disguise with the

passage in "Le Club des hachiehins" (1846) in which the narrator finds his head

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.76 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 19:39:40 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Book Reviews 161

replaced by "non pas une tête dane comme . . . Bottom, mais une tête d'élé

phant". Thus emerges a loose constellation of images of human-animal metamor

phoses. While it is not clear that Gautier knew of the pagan rites of Arles-sur-Tech,

and while Richer acknowledges that Gautier was probably unaware of the full

meaning of his elephant's-head image, both of these metamorphoses illustrate

Richer's penetrating insight into the baroque nature of Gautier's aesthetic. Further

tantalising references to Gautier and the occult concern Spirite, Jettatura, Avatar,

and Gautier's influence on Rimbaud's "Bottom". The topic is a rich one, and merits

comprehensive consideration; perhaps Professor Richer will devote a future book

to it.

Nor is it surprising that several of the studies are concerned entirely or in part

with Nerval; as Professor Richer says in his opening paragraphs, he came to

Gautier through the long and intimate friendship between the two poets. In one

chapter, he deals with the questionable attribution to one or the other of a half

dozen stories and articles. In others, he compares their treatment of the fleur

d'angsoka image, their reactions to the Middle East, their religious beliefs, their

ideas about madness.

In addition to its interpretive studies, Etudes et Recherches also contains

numerous primary texts. Two of Gautier's early newspaper articles, "Concert

Musard" and "De la mode dans les arts", unavailable since the record copy of La

Charte de 1830 was burned by the communards, are given in full. Four other

previously unknown articles are also published, as are the articles in the Journal de

Constantinople that Gautier used as his sources (acknowledged and unacknow

ledged) for parts of Constantinople. In addition to these completely "new" texts, Professor Richer brings to light

several articles, "injustement oubliés", that are scarcely more accessible. Although

any study of Gautier's criticism ought to be based on a reading of all the feuilletons, in their entirety, and not on the mutilated text of the Histoire de l'Art dramatique, Professor Richer makes it clear from these articles and a series of shorter quotations that Gautier's weekly columns are not mere chronicles. His selection proves, if

proof were needed, that Gautier the critic was a thinking artist, if not a great

intellectual, and that it is time for a proper edition of his criticism.

On the negative side of the ledger, there are some inaccuracies: "La Sylphide" for Gautier's mistress "La Cydalise", "Le Trou du sépulchre" for his poem "Le

Trou du serpent", the statement that Gautier was "peu sensible à la musique"; and

some chronological confusions: the skepticism Gautier showed at Madame de

Girardin's séances came too early to be proof of his disbelief in the occult when he

wrote Spirite ten years later; the implied influence of Lex Deux Cousines on

"Chinoiserie" (1835) was impossible since Richer shows that Gautier could only have read the story in 1840. The absence of a bibliography makes the sometimes

vague references difficult to follow up, although there is a very helpful index; and

the text is marred by far too many typographical errors.

Mount Allison University

Sackville, N.B., Canada

Andrew G. Gann

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.76 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 19:39:40 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions