Stendhal's Violin: A Novelist and his Reader

by Roger Pearson

Overview

Stendhal lets his readers experience in the act of reading what his protagonists experience in the act of living, argues this original, well-written study about the relationship between novelist and reader. Novels discussed include Armance, Le Rouge et le Noir, Lucien Leuwen, and La Chartreuse de Parme.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198158516
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/14/1988
Pages:	310
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 8.81(h) x 0.97(d)

About the Author

The Queen's College, Oxford

Table of Contents

	Note on references	XV
I.	The Mirror And The Violin	1
1.	Joining the Happy Few	3
2.	Comedy and the novel	19
3.	Story-telling	25
II.	Galety And Tenderness In Armance: The Reader Empowered	39
1.	Tragedy and comedy	41
2.	By steam and sail	60
III.	Time And Imagination In Le Rouge Et Le Noir: The Reader as Tourist	67
1.	The chronicle	69
2.	Arrival in Verrieres: illusion and disillusion	76
3.	'Une chose presente': the use of the present tense	85
4.	Anticipation and flashback	95
5.	The passage of time	102
6.	Perspective	108
7.	The ambivalent narrator	114
8.	Prospects	122
9.	Pistol-shots	135
10.	Retrospect	143
IV.	Sincerity And Identity In Lucien Leuwen: The Reader in Question	157
1.	Text, context and choice of genre	159
2.	'Exercices de style'	175
3.	Role and identity	185
V.	Reason And Romance In La Chartreuse De Parme: The Reader Enchanted	203
1.	The miraculous novel	205
2.	'Circonstances romanesques'	215
3.	'Particularites reelles'	225
4.	Choices	245
VI.	Taking A Bow	255
1.	Lamiel	257
2.	Reverie	266
	Bibliography	277
	Index	291

Editorial Reviews

"A significant book on Stendhal the novelist and his relationship with his reader....Person's rich and coherent book is a thoroughly Stendhalian invitation to reading."—Nineteenth-Century French Studies

From the Publisher