Approaches to Teaching Duras’s by Mary Ellen Birkett, Christopher Rivers (review)

BIRKETT, MARY ELLEN, and CHRISTOPHER RIVERS, eds. Approaches to Teaching Duras’s Ourika. New York: MLA, 2009. ISBN 978-1-60329-018-0. Pp. 184. $37.50. It is now official: Ourika, the 1823 bestselling novel by Claire de Duras, which was virtually ignored by readers, critics, and teachers for 150 years, has entered the American academic canon. One clear sign is its appearance in the MLA Approaches to Teaching series. This volume bursts with information that will be useful to teachers and scholars who don’t yet know the novel and also to those who do. For the latter, the huge growth in historical, cultural and race studies approaches to the novel in the past two decades means that there is more to be assimilated, and this publication ably brings much of it together in a wellorganized volume. Part 1, “Materials,” lists editions and translations; suggests background readings in history, biography, race and slavery, literary history, and gender in history and literature; summarizes introductions, books, articles and media resources on Ourika; and ends with a five-page timeline. Part 2, “Approaches,” offers the editors’ excellent introduction and 22 essays divided into four sections: Historical Dimensions; Race, Class and Gender Matters; Literary Contexts; and Across the Curriculum. Essays in the last section give pedagogical ideas for teaching Ourika in intermediate and advanced French courses, comparative literature , history, French civilization, gender studies, and the humanities. As the editors note, it is not surprising that Ourika has become so popular in the classroom—both in English and in French. The text is short and relatively easy to read. The minimal but affecting tale is told by a sympathetic heroine. Saved at the age of two from a slave ship in Senegal and adopted by a French noblewoman, Ourika is doted upon and considers herself a member of the elite until she discovers that she is unmarriageable because of her skin color. Neither delivered from her marginalized status by the French Revolution nor able to identify with the slaves who rebelled against their French masters in SaintDomingue (Haiti), Ourika, haunted by accusations of an inappropriate love interest in her adopted brother, becomes a nun and dies soon after in a convent. Is there any reason to be worried about Ourika’s popularity? Yes, if it leads to simplistic readings that simply confirm our supposed superiority to the heroine’s prejudiced milieu. No, if it forces us to look more deeply at the questions the novel raises through sensitive, historically accurate and critically sophisticated treatments of this subject. In general, the contributors to this volume attempt to do that and succeed. They offer insights deriving from historical contextualization (the Haitian and French Revolutions, the Restoration, religion, Duras’s biography, the question of slavery, visual representations of Africans, and the story of the Senegalese woman on whom the novel is based), literary comparisons (with Chateaubriand’s René, Hugo’s Bug-Jargal and other women’s writing, including novels from the 1820s and Gisèle Pineau’s contemporary Francophone novels) as well as psychoanalytic, literary and textual approaches (melancholia, the Pygmalion myth, Ourika’s mal as illness) among many others. In a work with this many essays, there is inevitably some repetition. It is a shame that no illustrations were included, which would have been especially helpful for the de Raedt essay; however, reference is made there to websites where the images can be found. Given the series’ constraints, no article is more than six pages, which often makes for frustrating abridgement. It also means, Reviews 815 however, that the essays are all blessedly short and to the point. Altogether, it is a treasure trove and a valuable resource for students, teachers, and scholars alike in a variety of fields. When future scholars of American culture examine the period 1990–2010 and beyond, they could use this work as a primary text. It is an excellent compendium of essays and has much to say about who we are now. Pomona College (CA) Margaret Waller ABBOTT, HELEN. Between Baudelaire and Mallarmé: Voice, Conversation, and Music. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009. ISBN 978-8-0-7546-6745-2. Pp. xi + 245. $99.95. Recent scholarly work, including several important books...