Abstract
Stendhal’s
composition of the Chartreuse de parme
takes us through an operatic scenario where all is stage effect, the excitation
of the audience through conventional devices. We have a political novel acted
out for emotional logic, a historical romance following Scott but subjected to
classical irony. The subject disappears in the fireworks of words, and we have
through exciting actions an example of the text digesting itself, a game, a
novel (shockingly!) about nothing. It is a different direction for the novel
craft, a novel acting the part of a novel. It is Stendhal.
