In this Book

buy this book Buy This Book in Print
summary
Everyone agrees that Balzac is a realistic writer, but what do we actually mean when we say that? This book examines the richness and variety of Balzac’s approaches to realism, employing several different interpretive methods. Taking love and money as the “Prime Movers” of the world of La Comédie humaine, twenty-one chapters provide detailed analyses of the many strategies by which the writing forges the powerful impression of reality, the construction we famously think of as Balzacian realism. Each chapter sets the methods and aims of its analysis, with particular attention to the language that conveys the sense of reality. Plots, devices, or interpretive systems (including genealogies) function as images or reflections of how the novels make their meanings. The analyses converge on the central point: how did Balzac invent realism? No less than this fundamental question lies behind the interpretations this book provides, a question to which the conclusion provides a full answer. A major book in English devoted entirely to Balzac was overdue. Here is the American voice of Balzac studies, an engaging, insightful, and revealing excursion among the masterworks of one of the most important authors of all time.

Table of Contents

Download PDF Download Full Book
  1. Cover
  2. p. 1
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Title Page, Copyright
  2. pp. 2-5
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Contents
  2. pp. v-vi
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Illustrations
  2. pp. vii-9
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. ix-xi
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 1. Introduction: The Prime Movers
  2. pp. 1-12
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. I. Rhetorical Forms of Realism
  2. pp. 13-27
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 2. Mimetic Figures of Semiosis
  2. pp. 15-31
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 3. From Heteronomy to Unity: Les Chouans
  2. pp. 32-46
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 4. Tenebrous Affairs and Necessary Explications
  2. pp. 47-62
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 5. Self-Narration and the Fakery of Imitation
  2. pp. 63-79
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 6. The Double Representation of the History of César Birotteau
  2. pp. 80-93
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 7. La Maison Nucingen, A Financial Narrative
  2. pp. 94-106
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. II. Semiotic Images of Realism
  2. pp. 107-121
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 8. Myth and Mendacity: Pierrette and Beatrice Cenci
  2. pp. 109-127
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 9. The Corset of La vieille fille
  2. pp. 128-138
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 10. Genealogy and the Unmarried in La Rabouilleuse
  2. pp. 139-151
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 11. Ursule Mirouët: Genealogy and Inheritance
  2. pp. 152-166
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 12. Un prince de la bohème and Pierre Grassou, or How Love Makes Money
  2. pp. 167-174
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 13. Voyages of Reflection, Reflections on Voyages
  2. pp. 175-191
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. III. Mimetic Structures of Realism
  2. pp. 193-207
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 14. Balzac and Poe
  2. pp. 195-207
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 15. Chemistry and Composition: La recherche de l’Absolu
  2. pp. 208-220
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 16. The Capital of Money and the Science of Magnetism: Melmoth réconcilié
  2. pp. 221-229
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 17. Love, Music, and Opium: Medical Semiotics of Massimilla Doni
  2. pp. 230-241
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 18. The Language of Sex
  2. pp. 242-258
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 19. Composed Past and Historical Present
  2. pp. 259-269
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 20. Problems of Closure
  2. pp. 270-291
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 21. Conclusion: Balzac’s Invention of Realism
  2. pp. 292-306
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Bibliography
  2. pp. 307-316
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 317-333
  3. open access
    • PDF icon Download
Back To Top