Le jeu des familles dans le roman du XIXe siècle par Claudie Bernard (review)

Reviews 205 establishes in chapter 6. Tracy Adams paints an enthralling picture of court life and the machinations of nobles vying for power and legitimate authority in late Medieval France. She makes Pizan come alive for her reader, not as a wise but neutral observer and chronicler, but as a participant in and shaper of deeply significant decisions and events. Not only will this book provoke“debate about Christine’s attitudes toward the Armagnac-Burgundian conflict”(10),as the author hopes,it will surely inspire renewed and vigorous study of the poetry of Christine de Pizan, and of this tumultuous period of French history. Saint Louis University Kathleen M. Llewellyn Bernard, Claudie. Le jeu des familles dans le roman du XIXe siècle. Saint-Étienne: PU de Saint-Étienne, 2013. ISBN 978-2-86272-645-8. Pp. 323. 25 a. Taking its title from the card game le jeu des sept familles, this volume explores the dynamics of ten fictional households in novels published between 1830 and 1900, a period of profound social transition in France during which, Bernard argues, the importance of maternal love and filial bonds begin to eclipse that of traditional paternal authority. Throughout the study, Bernard characterizes family groups according to their varying degrees of sameness (mêmeté), such as the extent to which they share physical space, genetic traits, or a last name; she also underscores their elements of difference (alterité), especially in relationships between men and women, where incest and same-sex unions are prohibited. The balance, or lack thereof, of these two features that are essential for the development, continuity, and regeneration of literary households predicts the relative success or failure of the family units. Rather than present the novels in chronological order, Bernard groups them according to the principles of family organization that they display. In the first sections, for instance, she addresses the role of the father as chef de famille in aristocratic and rural families, as well as his paternal counterpart in government, the patriarchal chef d’État, in works by Honoré de Balzac (Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées and Ursule Mirouët), Paul Bourget (L’étape), the Goncourt brothers (Renée Mauperin), and Émile Zola (Le docteur Pascal). In the second half of her work, Bernard focuses on maternal and filial relationships that tend to privilege the concerns of individuals over those of the collective and therefore risk undermining social and political unity. In her view, for example, George Sand in Le compagnon du Tour de France and Eugène Sue in Le juif errant promote the family unit as a model of fraternité in order to ensure better cooperation among classes and reconciliation between the sexes, but such a dramatic reconfiguration of fundamental social institutions proves too destabilizing. The final section of this study explores Edmond de Goncourt’s Les frères Zemganno, Barbey d’Aurevilly’s Une histoire sans nom, and Élémir Bourges’s Le crépuscule des dieux as examples of deficiency and perversion that ultimately lead to further degradation of the family during the fin-de-siècle period.In the end, Bernard finds that the nineteenthcentury novel not only provides a unique opportunity to examine the social, cultural, and political ramifications of the evolving family unit, it also transforms that evolution into a work of art. This in-depth look at family dynamics is perhaps best suited for those already at least somewhat familiar with the books she treats, but Bernard’s insights and observations will be of interest to all readers curious about the complex mechanisms of family life in the nineteenth-century French novel. Brandeis University (MA) Hollie Markland Harder Blanchet-Douspis, Mireille. L’idéologie politique de Marguerite Yourcenar d’après son œuvre romanesque. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2014. ISBN 978-90-420-3779-3. Pp. 234. 50 a. Après L’influence de l’histoire contemporaine dans l’œuvre de Marguerite Yourcenar (FR 84.1),Blanchet-Douspis analyse le contenu‘idéologique’de l’œuvre d’une écrivaine qui ne figure pourtant pas parmi les auteurs ‘engagés’ de son époque. On savait Yourcenar traditionaliste, humaniste et helléniste. À la lecture de ce livre, on découvre une...