Le Merveilleux scientifique and the Fantastic

Le Merveilleux scientifique and the Fantastic Rae Beth Gordon T HE TITLE OF MY ESSAY MIGHT HAVE BEEN: “ Qu’est-ce qui fait travailler l’Imaginaire des lecteurs parisiens du XIXe siècle?” I believe an evolution, both in the themes/exploration of the unconscious and in the production of the effects that make up the Fantastic can be traced through the study of the psychiatric theories and nosography of the nineteenth century.1In what measure did authors have recourse to these documents, and to what extent did they furnish these writers with new effects for their tales? In 1865, Théophile Gautier published Spirite, the last of his récits fantastiques, a genre he had practiced for some 30 years. A few months later, in the same columns where Spirite had appeared in installments, he remarked that the nerves of a 19th-Century reader “ sont plus éprouvés que ceux des spectateurs du 18e siècle, et ils ont besoin, pour être ébranlés, d ’un fantastique un peu moins naïf...” 2 I will propose here that the new sophistication that would inspire fear in the French reader and elicit his or her credulity was to be found in science: in psychiatric case studies and theory. Psychiatric observations and treatment techniques would, throughout the 19th century, become more and more apt to furnish this new secousse for the imagination of the average reader. By the 1880’s, the former occupied a large place in the popular imagination, but much earlier in the century, writers like Nodier and Gautier had begun to exploit this field. The latter are better known for their fantastic tales based on the dream state and on other states yielding bizarre visions. In fact, many parallels can be drawn between the “ dream Fantastic” and the Fantastic based on abnormal mental states. Psychiatrists (and, as I will show, writers of the tales) did not fail to see these parallels, as they studied, analyzed, and described mental illness in such a way as to communicate its dramatic/theatrical and sensational character. The alliance between the Fantastic and the Dream narrative made the former a most appropriate genre for Romantic writers who sought to explore the dream state in depth. The famous opening words of Nerval’s Aurélia, “ Le Rêve est une seconde vie,” have implications for not only V o l . XXVIII, N o . 3 9 L ’E s p r i t C r é a t e u r Romanticism and the Fantastic, but also for an area psychiatry was just beginning to study in a systematic way: the (privileged) exploration of the avatars of the Self. For, if the dream is a second, alternative life, the Sub­ ject living it is not the same as the Subject of the waking existence. In fact, Nerval’s phrase could serve as the title of any one of a number of books on dream and somnambulism as a second, parallel existence in the lives of various Subjects. Both realms of the psyche, the dream state and “ double consciousness,” will be primary fields of study for French psy­ chiatry between 1850 and 1900. In particular, the Fantastic Being whose ego is split in two will come into prominence and elicit positive explana­ tions in the 1840’s through the 1880’s with the work of Drs. Moreau (de Tours), Landouzy, Azam, Charcot, Binet, and Janet on dream, som­ nambulistic states, hypnotism, and partial anesthesia. Azam and Binet labelled these sorts of experiences “ double c o n s c ie n c e Janet, in his monumental work L ’ Automatisme psychologique (1887), was the first psychiatrist to show that the second of these psychic states is one that “ persists underneath normal thought” : this pensée automatique is “ l’inconscient In 1838, Gautier wrote that the Fantastic tale benefited from the “ scientifically grounded” ideas of Mesmerism. I.c magnétisme animal est un fait désormais acquis à la science... Nous sommes entourés de merveilles, de prodiges, de mystères auxquels nous ne comprenons rien . . . en nous-mêmes gravitent des mondes ténébreux dont nous n’avons pas la conscience: l’infini et l’inconnu nous pressent...