Writers have long explored and attempted to portray the visual artists challenge of creating the ideal in the real world through art. My thesis asserts that the Pygmalion myth, originally told in written form in Ovids 8 A.D. Metamorphoses, is the quintessential model to explore the changing, and sometimes problematic, relationships between the artist, the creation, and the creative process. The three main characters in the Pygmalion myth the sculptor, the sculpture, and the divine intervention each appear, albeit in different manifestations, in its later adaptations. Throughout the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in French literature, authors explored this tripartite relationship in their texts. I claim that the retellings in my corpus attest to a renewed interest in Ovids myth at a time when ideologies and conceptions about the creative process underwent significant changes.
Platos conception of the ideal in The Phaedrus and The Republic serves as a grounding for each of my texts. I begin my examination with an exegesis of the Pygmalion poem in Ovids Metamorphoses. Chapter two explores the creation theme at the heart of Pygmalions quest in eighteenth-century theater to indicate the point at which French literature saw a marked increase in Pygmalion adaptations. Here, I introduce LAmante statue (1774) and La Fausse statue (1771) into the Pygmalion corpus. Looking at the ways in which the creator figure attempts to control the potential of the ideal object through destructive means, I turn to nineteenth-century fantastic short stories in Prosper Mérimées La Vénus dIlle (1837) and Balzacs Le Chef-doeuvre inconnu (1831/7). A final chapter reveals how innovations in technology and artifice aid the artist in reconstructing the ideal in two decadent novels: Villierss LEve future (1886) and Rachildes Monsieur Vénus (1884).
This dissertation will contribute to nineteenth-century French literary studies and eighteenth-century theater as well. Adding criticism of two eighteenth-century plays to the already significant body of Pygmalion retellings underlines the myths renewed popularity at the time. Each chapter examines these adaptations as part of a greater metamorphosis of the Pygmalion story itself. From creation to destruction to reconstruction, the creator figure adapts - with varied results - to a changing artistic, technological, and cultural environment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-11032015-151713 |
| Date | 20 November 2015 |
| Creators | O'Connor, Carrie L |
| Contributors | Bongiorni, Kevin, Stone, Greg, Suchy, Patricia, Ray, Leonard |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-11032015-151713/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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