The translations of Hoffman’s novels had an unpredictable and instant success in France since their publication in the 1830s. However, in order to understand the role of the mechanical doll Olimpia in the fin-de-siècle erotic imagination, we have to combine the intertextual and intergeneric analysis and the publishing history with the history of industrial manufacturing (with the establishment of Jumeau’s poupéees over German monopoly), of new forms of mass spectacle (especially Grevin Wax Museum) and of new sexual practices. A rapid review of macabre wax figures proposed by some fin-de- siècle authors, such as Rachilde and Jean Lorrain, introduces us in a Baudelerian and Mallarméan universe, in which the artificial prevails over the natural, the word replaces the object and the doll allows to go beyond the barrier of death and lack of meaning.
«Nostalgiques poupées»: l’eros “perturbante” nella letteratura fin-de-siècle
Carminella Sipala
2022-01-01
Abstract
The translations of Hoffman’s novels had an unpredictable and instant success in France since their publication in the 1830s. However, in order to understand the role of the mechanical doll Olimpia in the fin-de-siècle erotic imagination, we have to combine the intertextual and intergeneric analysis and the publishing history with the history of industrial manufacturing (with the establishment of Jumeau’s poupéees over German monopoly), of new forms of mass spectacle (especially Grevin Wax Museum) and of new sexual practices. A rapid review of macabre wax figures proposed by some fin-de- siècle authors, such as Rachilde and Jean Lorrain, introduces us in a Baudelerian and Mallarméan universe, in which the artificial prevails over the natural, the word replaces the object and the doll allows to go beyond the barrier of death and lack of meaning.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
