Critics have now shown that the romantic infatuation with the eighteenth century began long before the appearance on the literary scene of the Goncourt brothers; however, the latter masterfully captured the zeitgeist, becoming the passionate historians of this bygone century. Their works contribute largely to the creation of this "myth of the seventeenth century" which, far from being exhausted as a passing fad, influences posterity as well, as shown in the case of Proust. At the heart of this narrative of the 18th century as it appears in the writings of the Goncourts, there is of course fashion - for example, women's clothing defined as "Cupid's artillery" of a "century of voluptuousness" - which, as Jean-Louis Cabanès notes, has a testimonial dimension for the two brothers. In the first part of this article we would like to study the double significance of the role played by fashion in the construction of the myth of the 18th century in the two brothers. On the one hand, we show that the spirit of the century is reified in certain objects that are recurrent in the stories of the time - for example the "Watteau jacket" -; objects that are by definition ephemeral and which the Goncourt brothers paradoxically use to emblematize an era, to give it a physiognomy. On the other hand, we question the antinomy that characterizes fashion in the Goncourts' work: traditionally belonging to the semantic field of the present and the living, fashion becomes, on the other hand, a vestige of the past and the disappeared; destined to be exhausted in the chronicle of the moment, it is elevated to the privileged seat of memory. In the second part, the relationship between fashion and memory is explored in depth, showing that the literary use of fashion, encouraged by the Goncourts, leaves a trace in Proust. We will first notice the presence in the Recherche of a series of fetishes - from Odette's vaporous "Watteau-style" robe to the porcelain of Sèvres - which are the object of meticulous descriptions in the pages of two brothers, showing that Proust uses fashion as an "indexical paradigm" to trace the physiognomy of "lost time", just as the Goncourts did to trace the universe of the 18th century. If on the one hand fashion seems to lose its lively spirit and link to the "beautiful today" to become the melancholic and funereal index of a chronological shift between present and past, it becomes nevertheless, with its semantics of the detail and its "silent language", the most effective instrument to make revive the ghosts of the memory.

Le muet langage des robes: la leçon des Goncourt chez Proust = The silent language of dresses: the lesson of the Goncourts in Proust / R. Capotorti. - In: CAHIERS EDMOND ET JULES DE GONCOURT. - ISSN 1243-8170. - (2019), pp. 159-172. [10.4000/cejdg.1064]

Le muet langage des robes: la leçon des Goncourt chez Proust = The silent language of dresses: the lesson of the Goncourts in Proust

R. Capotorti
2019

Abstract

Critics have now shown that the romantic infatuation with the eighteenth century began long before the appearance on the literary scene of the Goncourt brothers; however, the latter masterfully captured the zeitgeist, becoming the passionate historians of this bygone century. Their works contribute largely to the creation of this "myth of the seventeenth century" which, far from being exhausted as a passing fad, influences posterity as well, as shown in the case of Proust. At the heart of this narrative of the 18th century as it appears in the writings of the Goncourts, there is of course fashion - for example, women's clothing defined as "Cupid's artillery" of a "century of voluptuousness" - which, as Jean-Louis Cabanès notes, has a testimonial dimension for the two brothers. In the first part of this article we would like to study the double significance of the role played by fashion in the construction of the myth of the 18th century in the two brothers. On the one hand, we show that the spirit of the century is reified in certain objects that are recurrent in the stories of the time - for example the "Watteau jacket" -; objects that are by definition ephemeral and which the Goncourt brothers paradoxically use to emblematize an era, to give it a physiognomy. On the other hand, we question the antinomy that characterizes fashion in the Goncourts' work: traditionally belonging to the semantic field of the present and the living, fashion becomes, on the other hand, a vestige of the past and the disappeared; destined to be exhausted in the chronicle of the moment, it is elevated to the privileged seat of memory. In the second part, the relationship between fashion and memory is explored in depth, showing that the literary use of fashion, encouraged by the Goncourts, leaves a trace in Proust. We will first notice the presence in the Recherche of a series of fetishes - from Odette's vaporous "Watteau-style" robe to the porcelain of Sèvres - which are the object of meticulous descriptions in the pages of two brothers, showing that Proust uses fashion as an "indexical paradigm" to trace the physiognomy of "lost time", just as the Goncourts did to trace the universe of the 18th century. If on the one hand fashion seems to lose its lively spirit and link to the "beautiful today" to become the melancholic and funereal index of a chronological shift between present and past, it becomes nevertheless, with its semantics of the detail and its "silent language", the most effective instrument to make revive the ghosts of the memory.
Dans cet article on étudie la double signification du rôle joué par la mode dans la construction du mythe du XVIIIe siècle chez les Goncourt. D’un côté, on montre que l’esprit du siècle est réifié dans certains objets fétiches récurrents ; de l’autre côté, on s’interroge sur l’antinomie qui caractérise la mode : appartenant au transitoire, elle devient vestige du passé. Ensuite, on étudie l’héritage des Goncourt chez Proust, en montrant que la mode devient le « paradigme indiciaire » pour tracer la physionomie du temps perdu. Si la mode semble perdre son esprit vivace et lié au « bel aujourd’hui » pour devenir l’indice mélancolique d’un décalage chronologique entre présent et passé, elle devient néanmoins l’instrument le plus efficace pour faire revivre les fantômes de la mémoire.
Proust; Frères Goncourt; mode; 18th century
Settore L-LIN/03 - Letteratura Francese
2019
https://journals.openedition.org/cejdg/1064
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/952515
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