George Sand and the ideological reappropriation of the English Gothic novel in 1830s France

Abstract

The gothic presence in French literature has been traditionally considered within the canonic 1764-1830 time frame. Beyond the critical threshold year of the gothic – 1830 – Gothic influences tend to be categorised differently by French critics, subsumed under labels like the ‘roman frénétique’ (Anthony Glinoer), and ‘le fantastique’. The English Gothic is thus often considered to be a mere precursor to French fantastic literature (Denis Mellier). This critical situation has both obscured the cross-channel gothic lineage of post-1830 French works, and reserved the term ‘Gothic’ to popular or marginal literature of dubious value. However, the influence of the Gothic genre can be discerned in works by more canonical French authors, such as Hugo, Balzac, Stendhal and Sand, the latter two overtly expressing their admiration for Ann Radcliffe. George Sand furnishes an excellent example of the ways in which authors of calibre reappropriate the Gothic model in order to advance serious ideological concerns. A literary manifestation of social unrest, the gothic genre proves to be a fruitful resource for Sand, enabling her to probe the gender inequalities which plagued 1830s Restoration France, and the unfulfilled utopian promises of the 1789 Revolution. This article focuses on two of her most gothic novels in the 1830s: Lélia (1833) and Mauprat (1835). A close reading of the disturbing Lélia demonstrates how Sand reappropriates English gothic novels written by both men and women (The Monk, Melmoth the Wanderer but also Zofloya and The Mysteries of Udolpho), in order to explore the perception of the female intellectual as a figure of excess and transgression. Particular attention is given to the uncanny doubling of the heroine (virgin/whore), as a way of figuring the impasses of female sexuality. An analysis of the more optimistic Mauprat, shows how Sand deploys a more enabling form of the Gothis in order to advance the three facets of the revolutionary ideal: liberté, égalité and fraternité.