Just Balzac

Despite a pious regard for Père Goriot and Eugénie Grandet and a poststructuralist obsession with “Sarrasine,” Balzac’s works remain largely unknown, particularly his many novellas. In this course, we will investigate several of the most compelling of these shorter tales, attempting to probe the connection between Balzac’s choice of the form and his ultimate preoccupations. Why did the consummate novelist turn frequently to the novella? Furthermore, we will try to uncover the narratological implications of Balzac’s plots and methodology, as his fictions seem to engage, quite self-consciously, issues crucial to current inquires into narrative. Thus, particular stories can be seen to offer not only a theory of gender and/or a theory of language but also a coherent and apparently deliberate set of reflections on matters ranging from the status of authorship and the “character” to the problem of “closure” and the problematic of desire as metaphor for both money and narrative. Finally, if, as Michael Wood says, “The very possibility of a meaning ruins a certain form of freedom…yet stories carry the disease of meaning,” we will examine how the Balzacian tale immunizes itself. Readings include Sarrasine, La Maison Nucingen, Adieu, and Albert Savarus. Advanced intermediate students with permission of the instructor.