Céline and the Politics of DifferenceRosemarie Scullion, Philip H. Solomon, Thomas C. Spear For decades Louis-Ferdinand Celine has been viewed in terms of a stark critical polarity: is he the consummate stylist and iconoclast who assailed bourgeois literary norms in his novels, or the abhorrent racist who authored maliciously anti-Semitic, misogynist pamphlets that endorsed authoritarianism? The answer has been obscured by critical evaluations that traditionally drew attention away from Celine's often blatantly exclusionary discourse. This collection cuts through the mythos of literary style to investigate the constructs of race, class, ethnicity, and gender in the whole of Celine's oeuvre. Essays examine the much-debated topic of his sanity, the political context of his writing, the role of the female body in his fiction, the place of historicism and politics in a critical reinterpretation of his canon, and his relationship with contemporaries like Sartre and Renoir. By looking at Celine's essentializing notions readers come to a clearer understanding of how his "surly, often outrageous discourses on human difference mirror the hierarchies of value and relations of dominance" characteristic of his culture. That mirror, Scullion suggests, reflects an oddly conformist stance for a self-styled maverick like Celine. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
A Clinical or a Critical Case? | 13 |
Sources and Quotations in Célines Bagatelles pour un massacre | 29 |
Copyright | |
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Céline and the Politics of Difference Rosemarie Scullion,Philip H. Solomon,Thomas C. Spear Limited preview - 1994 |
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aesthetic Alméras American André Gide anti-Semitic Aryan asserts Bagatelles ballerina ballet Bardamu Beaux Draps castration Céline Céline's narrator Céline's writing Célinian century Château l'autre chronicle cinema claims Clémence critics cultural dance dancers Destouches discourse Editors epigraph erotic essay European fascism Féerie female body feminine Ferdinand film France France's Franks French Gallo-Romans Gauls gender German trilogy Godard Helsey Hindus human identity ideological Illusion Jean Jean Renoir Jewish Jews Juifs Kristeva L'Ecole des cadavres L'Eglise La Grande Illusion La Nausée Lola Lola's Louis-Ferdinand Céline madness male Maréchal massacre modern Mort à crédit narrative Nations Nausée Nazi novel nuit Nuremberg trials pamphlets paranoid Paris Paris-Soir passage persecution Pierre Laval political Popular Front postmodern Proust's published quotations race racial racist readers reading reference Renoir Rigodon Rosenthal Sartre Sartre's sexual difference Sigmaringen signifying social style textual tion Vichy Voyage au bout woman women Yudenzweck