Optiques: The Science of the Eye and the Birth of Modern French Fiction

Contents

Contents Introduction. The Epistemology of Optics: Seeing Subjects, Modern Minds 1 Part I: Realism and the Visionary Eye: Balzac's Optics of Narration 1. Second Sight and the Authorial chambre noire: Les Chouans, Louis Lambert 19 2. "Tomber dans Ie phenomene": Mterimages in La Maison Nucingen and Le Bal de Sceaux 33 3. Alternative Optics: Seraphita, La Recherche de l'absolu, and La Peau de chagrin 48 4. "Effets de lumiere," or A "Second" Second Sight: La Fille aux yeux d 'or 59 Part II: Tenebrous Mfairs: Romans policiers and the Detecting Eye 5. Cuvier, Helmholtz, and the Visual Logics of Deduction: Poe, Doyle, Gaboriau 85 6. Learning to See: Monsieur Lecoq and Empiricist Theories of Vision 110 7. Sealed Chambers and Open Eyes: Leroux's Mystere de la chambre jaune 137 viii Contents Part III: Villiers, Verne, and Claretie: Toward a Fin-de-Siecle "Optogrammatology" 8. Death and the Retina: Claire Lenoir, L 'Accusateur, and Les Freres Kip 155 9. Optogranl Fiction: Communication, Doubt, and the Fantastic 176 10. Tropical Piercings: Nationalism, Atavism, and the Eye of the Corpse 193 11. The Fin-de-Siecle Logic of the Mterimage: Hysteria, Hallucination, and Villiers's L'Eve future 206 Epilogue. The Mterimage of Reference: Optics and the nouveau roman 222 Notes 227 Index 261 Acknowledgrrlents 271 ...