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  • Transposing Art into Texts in French Romantic Literature
  • Emma Wagstaff
Transposing Art into Texts in French Romantic Literature. By Henry F. Majewski . Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press. 2002. 128 pp. Pb $30.00.

Henry F. Majewski's study is consistently clear, engaging and easy to read. He gives an overview of the ways in which art is transposed into Romantic prose and poetry, and this is balanced by focus on individual texts and detailed analysis of particular passages where transposition is in operation. He devotes two chapters to Balzac, and considers Gautier and Sand, as well as writers who were inspired by Dürer's engravings. He concludes with a brief discussion of the less well-known Louis Boulanger's work as painter and poet. He insists particularly on the value of art in the writers' eyes. Sand, for example, considered that the writer resembled the artisan; Gautier believed that, by including painting in his work, he increased its value and significance; for Balzac, painting added a spiritual dimension to human situations. The chapters follow their subjects in taking different approaches to transposition. For instance, Majewski covers writing that evokes scenes as if transposing paintings (Gautier), the development of a style that resembles an artistic technique without transposing images (Sand and mosaic), the use of art as inspiration for imagined scenes that go beyond the visual ones (Hugo on Dürer) and the writer's vision of art as providing authentic meaning rather than being a commodity (Balzac). Majewski's changing focus is not inconsistent, because 'transposition' need not be too narrowly defined. Majewski points out that he does not always follow the nineteenth-century understanding of the term, which is close to the meaning of ekphrasis. Instead, his broad examination of transposition is true to the varying forms of engagement with works of art that the Romantic period produced. His book is more useful and interesting than it would have been had it attempted to fit these different writers into an overarching theoretical framework. Majewski suggests that Boulanger, the focus of his conclusion, shows admirably the fascination of Romantic writers with interarts relations. Unfortunately the brief discussion of his work is somewhat distracting because it introduces another aspect of the question, that is, painting that transposes the written word, without having the space to pursue it. A further minor criticism would be that the occasional references to modern and contemporary writers, Breton and Baudrillard, for instance, are slightly intrusive and not sufficiently convincing.

Majewski writes that his book is the result of many years' study and discussion with students, and this comes through in its measured clarity. A potentially unwelcome result of its summarizing quality is that it might appear less original than it actually is. It provides a valuable resource for students, but also offers an admirably lucid account of the different ways in which important Romantic writers engaged with visual art.

Emma Wagstaff
Trinity College, Cambridge
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