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Article

English

ID: <

10.4000/studifrancesi.4262

>

·

DOI: <

10.4000/studifrancesi.4262

>

Where these data come from
Narrative Improvisations: Balzack’s ‘Facino Cane’

Abstract

In this discussion intended to complement existing studies of Facino Cane, it is argued that Balzac’s short narrative is the product of a persistent reflection on storytelling and on the status of the composition as writing. Balzac is shown to make extensive reference to a range of other texts including Les Mille et Une Nuits and Dante’s Inferno, while his representation of the blind musicians is shown to relate similarly to a prominent literary and graphic tradition that begins with Montesquieu and takes in, for example, L.-S. Mercier, E. de Jouy, and contemporary Parisian guidebooks. There follows an examination of the distinctive play on proper names and of the way the text is generated by a select number of associative chains. It is claimed that the perceptible ambiguities of the composition stem from this self-reflexive and ludic art of improvisation.

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