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Juxtaposing historical evidence with fiction, this thesis probes into the social marginalization of Third Republic schoolmistresses reflected in literary stereotypes. Despite their manifold representation in novels, the general stereotype is still predominant: a displeasing teacher in misery. Mostly secluded in provincial posts, they suffered not only from material indigence and burdensome teaching, but also from the hostility projected from their surroundings. Under these unfavorable circumstances, many took refuge in professional devotion and abnegation. However, they sometimes developed an ideal of heroism and self-sacrifice, which were comparable to nuns’ religious credos. Women teachers’ political portrait is often left out of literary representation. Because they could not even defend themselves and have their interests protected by superiors, political engagement would mean little to their secluded lives. Yet in the masculine Republic, women educators shouldered a political task of forming girls as qualified mothers and companions who embraced republican values. The Republic’s reinvention of the secular faith and the lay School manifested its inheritance of the Catholic legacy it strived to eradicate, best demonstrated by its imitation of a laicized religious discourse, epitomized in literature by institutrices’ spirit of martyrdom. Through their professional efforts, they came into the public sight and increased their political impact. With their pacifist ideal, militant teachers safeguarded the Republic as well as republican schooling. Above all, as a result of their continuous struggles, they shattered the image of domestic women by proving themselves to be independent and public, shaping the New Woman “prototypes” of the new century. The “vices” of new career women were evident, for their new professional identity contravened conventional norms of gender roles. It was the teaching career that gave them an anomalous sexual experience, by depriving them of their womanly roles as wives and mothers. The image of the embittered “vieille fille” thus became a target for demonization, which was presumably a cultural motive behind Colette’s writings. She arguably employed the image of schoolmistress as a vehicle for exposing a public polemic between traditional and modern views on gender roles, in the context of major social transformations especially in thought. Schoolmistresses are a metonymy of French republicanism: a republican experiment which conflicted with women’s traditional functions and undermined the inveterate masculinist order. Third Republic schoolmistresses underwent a metamorphosis from domestic to public as they acquired new social roles. While institutrice literature shares profound bonds with autobiographical accounts, many testimonies also suggest an inclination of being attached to and even governed by novels. Despite the fact that literature is fabricated upon a universe of stereotypes, many teachers spontaneously chose fictional texts as the representative of their professional voice, making these “republican mythologies” a collective autobiography which articulated institutrices’ individual career pathos to a broader audience. / published_or_final_version / Modern Languages and Cultures / Master / Master of Philosophy

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This dissertation examines the symphony in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France by way of individual chapters on the period's seven most influential and frequently performed works: Camille Saint-Saens's Third Symphony (1885-86), Cesar Franck's Symphony in D minor (1887-88), Edouard Lalo's Symphony in G minor (1886), Vincent d'Indy's Symphonie sur un chant montagnard franrcais (1886) and Second Symphony (1902-03), Ernest Chausson's Symphony in B-flat (1890), and Paul Dukas's Symphony in C (1896). Beethoven established the primary paradigm for these works in his Third, Fifth; and Ninth Symphonies, and the principal historical issue I address is how French composers reconciled this paradigm with their own aesthetic priorities within the musical and cultural climate of fin-de-siecle France. / Previous critics have viewed this repertoire primarily with limited structuralist methodologies. The results have often been unhappy: all of these symphonies are in some ways formally idiosyncratic and individual, and their non-conforming aspects have tended to puzzle or disappoint. My study draws on recent methods developed by Warren Darcy, Scott Burnham, and others that emphasize the dynamic and teleological qualities of musical form. This more supple approach allows a fuller appreciation of the subtle and sophisticated ways in which individual works unfold formally, and the spectrum of procedures French composers employed. / My study demonstrates that the factors shaping the French symphony in this period included imperatives of progress as well as the popularity of the symphonic poem. Some of the earlier symphonists covered in this study also felt the need to confront Wagner's influential theoretical writings: mid -century he had famously proclaimed the death of the symphony. As many writers have argued, the archetypal heroic "plot" that Beethoven's symphonies express embodies the subject-laden values---notions of individual freedom and faith in the self---that prevailed in his time. Different inflections of this plot by French symphonists, I argue, reflect the variegated ways fin-de-siec1e French culture had received these values.

Vitalism is an underappreciated and often misunderstood idea. This thesis seeks to explore the historical origins and meanings of vitalism in 19th century France; tracing the transition from medical vitalism in the Montpellier School in the late 18th and early 19th century to a largely philosophical vitalism in the late 19th century, emblemized by Henri Bergson. / I argue that the decline of medical vitalism was brought about by the rise of scientific medicine, the experimentalism of physiologists like Claude Bernard and the growing influence of positivism in late 19th century France. I see the seminal moment of this transition from a metaphysical to a scientific world-view in the materialism-spiritualism controversy of the 1850s, which was sparked by the development of modern biology and the experimental life sciences. / Despite its general disappearance from mainstream medicine and science, vitalism continued to have echoes in a number of fields in the 20th century, and remains a concept relevant to our contemporary circumstances.

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