Musset

Summary

Dominique Pagani sees Musset as an undervalued author. For him, La Confession d'un enfant du siècle is one of the most intelligent books of Romanticism on the mal du siècle1. He finds in it an almost sociological analysis of a generation, the generation of the cafés, which came after the men of the Grande Armée and is tied to the memory of Napoleon2. Above all, he dwells on Musset's self-mockery: Musset called himself the "prince of the cafés" and, in the "Ballade à la lune," he compares the moon to a "dot on an i." Pagani reads this as the humour of late Romanticism, a sign that Romanticism is handing over34. He also points out that the elegiac poet is mocked even though he wrote lucid comedies, and he quotes Perdican's closing speech5. He often returns to the rose and the hornet in La Nuit de mai, an image of the link between flower and eros and of the trap of Romantic temptation. He connects him with Nerval and Vigny and sets him against the classical concern for form.

1. 1#4.6 Angélique (by Nerval)15 Mar 2018 · 14:08
2. 2Napoleon, or the reasons of cunning2 Dec 2024 · 1:07:17
3. 3#9 Pictures at an Exhibition: art, seen from here or from the other side?10 Feb 2022 · 1:00:07
4. 4Kleist, “On the Marionette Theatre”29 Sept 2023 · 24:33
5. 5From the debauchery of sense to the orgy of sentiment29 May 2023 · 2:35:23

Summary produced automatically from 36 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.