L'Année stendhalienne 7: Stendhal dialoguiste, and: L'Année stendhalienne 8: Stendhal et la femme (review)

These two volumes consist first and foremost of papers from two conferences held in 2005 and 2006 respectively, supplemented by a generous varia of essays, unpublished documents, notes, and reviews. Shedding light on certain points more or less essential to the understanding of Stendhal's works, these last contributions are of sound quality, upholding the high standards for which L'Année stendhalienne is rightfully known. The polemical tone of certain of the reviews is especially noteworthy, reflecting a significant and gratifying critical stance that is also evident in a number of the conference papers. The conferences set out to examine two relevant fields of study that constitute, at first glance, quite opposite features of Stendhal's art: his discursive practices (vol. 7) and the thematic vision in his works (vol. 8). However, a common objective is clearly articulated in each preliminary introduction: to stress the breadth and complexity of Stendhal's œuvre, and, consequently, to search for new critical perspectives in order to explore further this extremely well-analysed author. The editors thus show a healthy awareness of the 'state of the art' in Stendhal studies. At the heart of volume 7 is the challenge to defy certain simplifications concerning what critics generally accept as Stendhal's 'egotism', that is, what is defined as the overwhelming presence of the author in the work, the strong biographical implications found in the expression of his supposed alter egos, and the firm, self-centred visions that would then reduce the perspective to that of the author himself. In an invigorating essay Yves Ansel demolishes these idées reçues. Identifying inherent problems with the aforementioned points, he refuses to accept the mass of anomalies that appear after close (and extensive) reading. Instead, he proposes a new paradigm (Kuhn) and so introduces the reader to the problematic of dialogue and dialogism in Stendhal's work, notions that embrace every aspect from dialogue in theatre to polyphonic novels (Bakhtin). A number of valuable contributions, presenting a spectrum of readings, follow, among them Éric Avocat's discussion of how the generic framework of the theatre raises an obstacle to Stendhal's intentions to develop fully the psychology of the character and to give a political touch to the drama, ambitions for which the novel form proves to be more appropriate; Agathe Novak-Lechevalier's characterization of 'theatrical dialogue', an efficient methodological choice that allows for an evaluation of the specific functions and effects of dialogues in the novel form; and Éric Bordas's analysis of idiolects and sociolects examined in the view of construction of characters, hence offering a reflection on the stylistic and aesthetic implications of putting a mimetic dialogue into a realistic discourse. In summary, therefore, even if a few of the contributions are concerned with somewhat marginal aspects and others seem to need one or two twists to fit their subjects into the main theme treated, the volume nonetheless makes many innovative contributions to Stendhal studies. Volume 8 also has its measure of excellent papers, which avoid repeating the common places of a frequently commented theme. In the main the contributions depart — and sometimes detach themselves — from the existing biographical, feminist, and psychoanalytical sum of knowledge (some papers also explore the gender perspective). Particularly worth mentioning among these fine studies are the summing up of the conception of the eighteenth-century woman according to Stendhal (Béatrice Didier), the identification of an original type of romantic woman in Lamiel, in part inheriting mythological dimensions (Marie de Gandt), a complementary perspective of the friendship existing within the female communities in Stendhal's works (Maria Scott), and yet another deconstruction of a stereotype in criticism, this time concerning the women in Lucien Leuwen (Yves Ansel). Finally, Philippe Berthier and Martine Reid each offer a rather...