Sublime Surrender: Male Masochism at the Fin-de-siècle

237 Pages·1998·9.771 MB·English

by  Suzanne R. Stewart

S U B L I ME S U R R E N D ER
CORNELL STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF PSYCHIATRY
A SERIES EDITED BY SANDER L. OILMAN AND GEORGE J. MAKARI
Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States
and Canada, 1880-1940
by Ian Robert Dowbiggin
Madness in America: Cultural and Medical Perceptions of Mental Illness
before 1914
by Lynn Gamwell and Nancy Tomes
Freud and His Aphasia Book: Language and the Sources of Psychoanalysis
by Valerie D. Greenberg
The Mastery of Submission: Inventions of Masochism
by John K. Noyes
Adolf Wblfli: Draftsman, Writer, Poet, Composer
edited by Elka Spoerri
Sublime Surrender: Male Masochism at the Fin-de-Siecle
by Suzanne R. Stewart
SUBLIME
SURRENDER
M A LE M A S O C H I SM AT
T HE F I N - D E - S I É C LE
SUZANNE R. STEWART
C O R N E LL U N I V E R S I TY P R E SS
ITHACA AND LONDON
Copyright © 1998 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing
from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press,
Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 1998 by Cornell University Press
First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 1998
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stewart, Suzanne R.
Sublime surrender : male masochism at the fin-de-siecle / Suzanne R. Stewart.
p. cm. — (Cornell studies in the history of psychiatry)
Several chapters of this book were read at a colloquium and a seminar.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8014-3434-3 (alk. paper). — ISBN 0-8014-8450-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
i. Masochism. 2. Sexual dominance and submission. 3. Masochism in literature.
4. Sex in opera. I. Tide. II. Series.
HQ79s823 1998
3o6.77'6—dc2i 98-15731
Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and
materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials
include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are also
recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers.
Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 i
Paperback printing 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 43 2 i
Siehst du denn nicht, dafi ich
keine Arme habe und also nicht
helfen kann?
—Heinrich Heine
FOR MICHAEL
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 "A familiar smile of fascination": Masochism, Sublimation,
and the Cruelty of Love 16
2 When Men Can No Longer Paint: Acts of Seeing
in Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs 58
3 The Theft of the Operatic Voice: Masochistic Seduction
in Wagner's Parsifal 89
4 Saving Love: Is Sigmund Freud's Leader a Man? 116
5 The Rhetoric of Powerlessness 164
Notes
195
Selected Works Cited 216
Index 221
vii
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Much help and support stand behind the following pages, from both in-
dividuals and institutions. First and foremost, I thank Sander Oilman
and Dominick LaCapra for their continuous support, suggestions, and
criticisms over the past years. Without Sander Oilman's constant en-
couragement and Dominick LaCapra's wise exhortations against "wild
theory," this book would never have been written.
Various drafts of the following chapters were read by members of the
German Studies Reading Group and by participants in the German
Studies Colloquium conducted by Peter Hohendahl under the auspices
of the Institute for German Cultural Studies at Cornell University. As a
Mellon Fellow in Cornell's Department of Government in 1994/5,1 was
able to try out some of my emerging ideas on the relationship between
the crisis of liberalism and male subjectivity in a seminar on politics and
masochism. The members of the NEH Summer Seminar on masochism
led by Sander Gilman also read significant portions of the manuscript
and offered many valuable suggestions. I thank as well the Department
of Modern Languages at Cornell University for release time from my
duties there, particularly Carol Rosen and Pina Swenson for their sup-
port and friendship.
Many friends and colleagues have been critical and generous readers
ix