Reappearing Characters in Nineteenth-Century French Literature

291 Pages·2018·2.328 MB·English

by  Sotirios Paraschas

REAPPEARING CHARACTERS IN
NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH LITERATURE
AUTHORSHIP, ORIGINALITY, AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
SOTIRIOS PARASCHAS
PALGRAVE STUDIES IN MODERN EUROPEAN LITERATURE
Palgrave Studies in Modern European Literature
Series Editors
Shane Weller
School of European Culture and Languages
University of Kent
Canterbury, UK
Thomas Baldwin
Centre for Modern European Literature
University of Kent
Canterbury, UK
Ben Hutchinson
Centre for Modern European Literature
University of Kent
Canterbury, UK
Linked to the Centre for Modern European Literature at the University of
Kent, UK, this series offers a space for new research that challenges the limi-
tations of national, linguistic and cultural borders within Europe and
engages in the comparative study of literary traditions in the modern period.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14610
Sotirios Paraschas
Reappearing
Characters in
Nineteenth-Century
French Literature
Authorship, Originality, and Intellectual Property
Sotirios Paraschas
King’s College London
London, UK
Palgrave Studies in Modern European Literature
ISBN 978-3-319-69289-0 ISBN 978-3-319-69290-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69290-6
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A
cknowledgements
This book originates in a research proposal for a grant application to the
Leverhulme Trust and its first form was written while I was Leverhulme
Early Career Fellow at the University of Warwick. I would like to thank
the Leverhulme Trust whose funding gave me the time to develop the
project which led to this book and enabled me to spend several months at
the BnF, without which a great part of this monograph could not have
been written. I have presented early versions of most chapters at the annual
conferences of the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes and the Nineteenth-
Century French Studies Association, as well as in workshops and research
seminars at the University of Warwick. An early form of material included
in the fourth section of Chap. 2 was published in Adaptation: Studies in
French and Francophone Culture, ed. Neil Archer and Andreea Weisl-Shaw
(Oxford: Peter Lang, 2012); I am grateful to the editors and to Peter
Lang for permission to include this material here.
This book is largely about originality, collaboration, and about acknowl-
edging one’s intellectual debts: I gladly acknowledge my continuing debt
to those who, having supervised my work in the past, continue to discuss
it with me and offer valuable advice and feedback: Professor Ann Jefferson,
Dr Tim Farrant, Professor Michalis Chryssanthopoulos, and Professor
Miltos Pechlivanos. In the course of the last few years, several colleagues
have kindly exchanged views with me about the topics examined in this
book: I owe special thanks to Andrew Watts, Fabio Camilletti, Kate
Astbury, Bradley Stephens, Daniela La Penna, Alison Martin, Julia Waters,
and Catherine Léglu. The summers of the period 2011–2013, during
which most of the library-based research for this book was conducted,
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
would have been much less productive without the presence of friends
and colleagues who also spent their summers at the BnF: special thanks
are due to Dimitris Papanikolaou, Michael Harrigan, and Philippe Le
Goff. Many of my friends have discussed this book with me and read
drafts of chapters; I wish to thank George Kazantzidis, Kostas Peroulis,
Kostas Spatharakis, Natalia Tsoumpra, Majd Khador, Kostis Karpozilos,
Dimosthenis Papamarkos, and Virginie Sauzon.
This book could not have been written without the support of my fam-
ily. It can only be dedicated to Luis, who is always there and has witnessed
its last stages first-hand.
S.P., London, July 2017
c
ontents
1 Introduction: ‘La littérature ruminante’ 1
Part I Originality and the Reappearance of Characters 33
2 ‘Le revenant littéraire’: Balzac and the Reappearance
of Characters as a Strategy of Re-appropriation 35
3 ‘Le revenant héréditaire’: The Reappearance of Characters
in Les Rougon-Macquart 79
Part II Silent Partnerships 135
4 The Poetics of Forgery in Charles Rabou’s Continuation
of Balzac’s Le Député d’Arcis 141
5 ‘Tous pour un, un pour tous’: Alexandre Dumas, Auguste
Maquet, and the Musketeers Trilogy 163
6 ‘Le collaborateur fantomatique’: Zola, William Busnach,
and the Stage Adaptations of Les Rougon-Macquart 199
vii
viii CONTENTS
7 C oncluding Reflections 237
Appendix A: List of the Stage Adaptations of Balzac’s Works
during His Lifetime 247
Appendix B: List of the Changes in the Description
of the Heredity of the Rougon-Macquart 251
Bibliography 257
Index 281
l A
ist of bbreviAtions
AB L’Année balzacienne.
BC Honoré de Balzac. Correspondance. Edited by Roger Pierrot. 5 vols.
Paris: Garnier, 1960–69.
CH Honoré de Balzac. La Comédie humaine. Edited by Pierre- Georges
Castex. 12 vols. Paris: Gallimard, 1978–81.
CHH Honoré de Balzac. Œuvres complètes. Edited by Maurice Bardèche. 28
vols. Paris: Club de l’honnête homme, 1956–63.
CN Les Cahiers naturalistes.
CS Charles Rabou. Le Comte de Sallenauve. 5 vols. Paris: de Potter, 1854.
DA Charles Rabou. Le Député d’Arcis. Paris: Librairie nouvelle, 1859.
FB Charles Rabou. La Famille Beauvisage. Paris: Albert Méricant, 1900.
OC Émile Zola. Œuvres complètes. Edited by Henri Mitterand. 21 vols.
Paris: Nouveau monde, 2002–10.
OD Honoré de Balzac. Œuvres diverses. Edited by Roland Chollet and René
Guise. 2 vols. Paris: Gallimard, 1990–96.
RM Émile Zola. Les Rougon-Macquart. Edited by Armand Lanoux and
Henri Mitterand. 5 vols. Paris: Gallimard, 1960–67.
TM Alexandre Dumas. Les Trois Mousquetaires. In Les Trois Mousquetaires.
Vingt ans après. Edited by Claude Schopp. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1991.
VA Alexandre Dumas. Vingt ans après. In Les Trois Mousquetaires. Vingt ans
après. Edited by Claude Schopp. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1991.
VB Alexandre Dumas. Le Vicomte de Bragelonne. Edited by Claude Schopp.
2 vols. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1991.
ZC Émile Zola. Correspondance. Edited by B. H. Bakker. 11 vols. Paris:
CNRS, 1978–2010.
ix