Old Books (ספרים עתיקים)
Portrait by J.A.D. Ingres (1780-1867). Part I of III: Intertextual Romanticism or A Link Through a Couple of Cool Novels and a Poem In Benjamin Constant’s short novel, Adolphe (1816), the story revolves around the young adult life of the title character as retold in his ‘found’ journals collected by a fictional narrator.  In these journals, the reader is told of the destructive love affair of an adulterous older woman, Ellenore, with Adolphe over the course of several years.  The woman breaks from her previous lover to be with him, and Adolphe suffers under society’s view of the affair, his father’s condemnation, and from the possessive love of the older woman. Now, for the interesting connections: Connection I: It is known that Constant was in a long-term affair with Madame de Staël (famous French novelist, lover, and staunch opposer of Napoleon) and the woman in Constant’s novel was said to have been based on de Staël and the novel was noted to be part autobiographical.  However, in a 2nd edition, he prefaces his novel with a disclaimer arguing against it, but the parallel remains and his argument fails to persuade his audience and historians.   Connection II: This French novel became an instant hit, not only because of the connection to de Staël.  Constant’s Adolphe was a man of sensitivity, not unlike Goethe’s immensely popular Werther, and the tortured romance, letters between lovers, help appeal outside of France.  In Russia during this time, French was read among the aristocracy more than their native tongue, so this novel made the rounds.  Among those reading it was a young Alexander Pushkin, the most awesomest of Russian poets… but that will be for Part II.  Here’s an excerpt of Adolphe’s speech to Ellenore during the torturous last year of their relationship: “The two years we have had together will never fade from my memory, and will always remain the finest time of my life.  But love, that ecstasy of the senses, that unsought-for madness, that forgetting of all one’s interests and duties, this, Ellenore, has gone.”

Portrait by J.A.D. Ingres (1780-1867).

Part I of III: Intertextual Romanticism or A Link Through a Couple of Cool Novels and a Poem

In Benjamin Constant’s short novel, Adolphe (1816), the story revolves around the young adult life of the title character as retold in his ‘found’ journals collected by a fictional narrator.  In these journals, the reader is told of the destructive love affair of an adulterous older woman, Ellenore, with Adolphe over the course of several years.  The woman breaks from her previous lover to be with him, and Adolphe suffers under society’s view of the affair, his father’s condemnation, and from the possessive love of the older woman.

Now, for the interesting connections:

Connection I: It is known that Constant was in a long-term affair with Madame de Staël (famous French novelist, lover, and staunch opposer of Napoleon) and the woman in Constant’s novel was said to have been based on de Staël and the novel was noted to be part autobiographical.  However, in a 2nd edition, he prefaces his novel with a disclaimer arguing against it, but the parallel remains and his argument fails to persuade his audience and historians.  

Connection II: This French novel became an instant hit, not only because of the connection to de Staël.  Constant’s Adolphe was a man of sensitivity, not unlike Goethe’s immensely popular Werther, and the tortured romance, letters between lovers, help appeal outside of France.  In Russia during this time, French was read among the aristocracy more than their native tongue, so this novel made the rounds.  Among those reading it was a young Alexander Pushkin, the most awesomest of Russian poets… but that will be for Part II. 

Here’s an excerpt of Adolphe’s speech to Ellenore during the torturous last year of their relationship:

“The two years we have had together will never fade from my memory, and will always remain the finest time of my life.  But love, that ecstasy of the senses, that unsought-for madness, that forgetting of all one’s interests and duties, this, Ellenore, has gone.”

Posted 9 months ago