The first part of the paper concentrates on the motive of desire, strictly related to the concept of will, in two stories from Les Ombres sanglantes [The Bloody Shadows] (1820) by J. P. R. Cuisin. Afterwards, the theme of power, considered firstly in the physical aspect and then in its supernatural dimension, is analyzed in further four stories. The article concludes with thoughts on the literary objectives of Cuisin’s book and on its potentially caricatural side.
In his works from maturity, Honoré de Balzac tries to formulate a philosophical system describing the role of the thought and its impact on human life. Those reflections originate already in his early works since 1818, in his philosophical notes, and later in the novels from the 1820s, as well as in other texts. His opinions develop in a certain “economy of thought” through which are expressed dialectics of thought, will and vital energy.
The aim of the following paper is to compare the female protagonists of Honoré de Balzac’s novel that dates back to 1842. The comparison is drawn in the context of two philosophical notions which are in opposition: volonté, understood as intent and desire to achieve goals or realize passions, and liberum arbitrium representing the free will to make conscious personal decisions. Mrs de l’Estorade, alias Renée de Maucombe, is the most conspicuous example of a character, who seems to be driven by social determinism. However, this assumption is paradoxically far from truth because the actions she takes reflect the principles of liberum arbitrium. The epistolary form of the novel complements the analysis of the aforementioned concepts. It allows the women to give vent to their feelings and explain the reasons behind their choices.
The paper discusses two characters of speculators as shown in two 19th century novels. Zola’s Aristide Saccard incarnates fever, chaos and prodigality of a provincial who has become a millionaire pursuing his dream of fortune. Guy de Maupassant’s William Andermatt is a banker whose extraordinary capacity of making money is based on rationalism, cold calculation and exceptional intuition. Despite all the differences, they both embody three basic features of a businessman: desire, will and power.
Zola's novel world can be seen as a play of forces that takes place in a strictly defined spatial configuration between aspirational characters striving to realize their desires; the body in motion becomes their expressive medium. Always semantically marked, movement is not only understood as the hero's movement between points in space. In this analytical perspective, based on the body of La Curée et L`Argent, the movement becomes the embodiment of the will / desire, the transformation of thought into action, what is potential into real.
The male protagonists of Barbey’s Norman novel cycle are characterized by a strong, even steadfast will. Despite this, regardless of the circumstances, each of them is defeated, contributing to the misfortune of others. They fail to achieve happiness, fulfill even the most noble mission or achieve a goal. This is because their fate is inseparably connected with Barbey's vision of the world and the philosophy of history.
This article analyses the disorder in functioning of will by the example of characters from a few texts of French symbolism. On the basis of experimental psychology research described in Les Maladies de la volonté of Th. Ribot, there are discussed the example of people which unfulfilled or obsessive desires point to weakening of will due to the lack or excess of impulse. So next to the characters of aboulic individuals created by T. de Wyzewa i J. de Tinan, in the texts of Villiers de L’Isle-Adam and M. Schwob we can see people pursuing at any cost the achievement of power, or the confirmation of oneself uniqueness.
The protagonists of Rachilde's novels often have unwavering will and great strength of character. However, they are not free from the desires they sometimes succumb to. The paper tackles the analysis of will, strength and desire in the novel L’Heure sexuelle (1898), in order to compare them to the theory of creative excellence presented in the novel, and to the concepts based on the philosophy of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.
François de Curel (1854-1928) went down into the history of the French theater as an author of ‘thesis plays’. However, his works contain the features of the so-called ‘drama crisis’ which manifests itself at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, by the rejection of the canonical rules advocated since Aristotle. In fact, by analyzing A False Saint (1892), we are forced to note that the writer is undermining the dramatic structure by shifting his gaze from action to the study of the souls of the characters. Deprived of all will, they slowly get bogged down in their shady as inert world. In this way, the French playwright puts emphasis not on ‘acting character’ but on ‘retrospective character’ (passive) who dwells on his unhappy life.
The present paper analyses the self-portrait of Isabelle Eberhardt emerging from the letters she wrote to three men: her brother Augustin de Moerder, her friend Ali Abdul Wahab and her husband Slimène Ehnni. The paper is divided into three parts. The first one discusses her desire of Orient, the second shows her will of annihilating herself and the last one focuses on the power of the desert which helps the writer to find the desired calm.
Inspired by H. G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau, M. Renard in his Le Docteur Lerne, sous-dieu (1908) portrays a mad scientist experimenting on living organisms, creating hybrids of humans, animals and plants. Renard extends the anachronistic theory of the Chain of Being to include machines, which he sees as the future of humanity, securing the place of his Lerne in the vanguard of transumanist literature. This paper aims to examine the novel’s intertextual references to both fictional and actual history of science.
The article’s aim is to show that La Fronde, a daily founded by Marguerite Durand, is a place of various manifestations, especially the will to change the political and social domain, and above all the status of a woman in society. The analytical corpus includes texts dealing with political rights (voting rights) and civil rights (the right to work), which were published in January and February 1899.
According to Gianni Vattimo, the secularization process can be seen as analogous to the “death of God” in the Western world. The “weak theology” that results from that view will be used in the article as a starting point for the study of three 19th century authors, lay and religious at the same time, Pierre Leroux, Edgar Quinet and Ernest Renan, who reflect on the meaning of religion in the modern world, as well as on its relation with the democratic State.
The aim of this article is to examine the interrelations between the notions of will, power and desire in Pierres noires : les classes moyennes du salut, a novel by Joseph Malègue (1876-1940), published posthumously in 1958. The analysis, focused on the notion of powerlessness, englobes two main aspects of the problem: the philosophical one (Bergson’s influence on Malègue, in particular that of Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion, 1932), and the socio-historical (the prism of Halévy’s La fin de notables, 1930).
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