Literature Network » Honore de Balzac

Dressing and undressing the princess of Cadignan: female drapery/narrative striptease.(Honore de Balzac: 'Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan')(Critical Essay)

Content courtesy of

From: The Romanic Review
Date: 20040501
Author:Moger, Angela S.

That storytelling is a time-honored means of inciting passion is clear if one considers only Ovid's advice in Ars Amatoria, Dante's Paolo and Francesca episode in The Divine Comedy, and the effect of hearsay and interpolation in The Princess of Cleves. That is, even the canonical works of western literature make clear that the exchange of a narrative may arise from and engender sexual politics; but the frequency with which the nineteenth-century French story actually depicts the narrative encounter as the occasion of confrontation between the sexes inspires a sense of the ...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Other Articles on Honore de Balzac

About Our Articles: We've partnered with Highbeam Research to provide these article excerpts for your research needs. However, due to copyright laws, we cannot publish the whole article. To view these articles in full length you'll need to use the link above to access the free trial at Highbeam.