Fatal Virgins:Inthe Shadow of a Blossoming French Decadency.
Proposal for a special session at the MLA 2009, inPhiladelphia.
This panel concentrates on the young side of the “femme fatale” in theFrench-speaking literatureof the last thirty years of the nineteenth century. While scholarship on naturalism,symbolism and decadency generally focuses on well defined feminine types, suchas prostitutes, dancers and working women, it is the dangerous non-boundariesof female youth that will be discussed at this session. Why and how isvirginity itself fatal in the writings of that era? Is this fascination simplymetaphorical of the writer's fear of the white page or is it announcing theloss of an aesthetic aura? Submissionsabout Stéphane Mallarmé's Hérodiade, Oscar Wilde'sSalomé, and/or other fatal virgins from the brothers Goncourt through Emile Zola,via Jean Lorrain, Marcel Schwob, Pierre Louÿs, and Joris-Karl Huysmans arewelcomed.
Papers will begiven in English. 1 page abstracts or completed papers (by email, preferred)
by March 15th to Virginie Pouzet-Duzer:
virginie.pouzet-duzer@pomona.edu
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Pomona College
550 North Harvard Avenue
91711- 6324
Claremont, CA, USA