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Aspects of Imagery in Colette: Color and Light

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2021

I. T. Olken
I. T. Olken*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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Extract

Colette died in 1954; since that time there has been little worthwhile critical note taken of her writing. This, despite the fact that she is allowed, although often grudgingly, a place of importance in contemporary French letters, with frequent reference made to a pervasive lucidity in her work. No one, however, has gone on to further define this elusive quality. The prevailing clichés continue, in the form of vague statements about natural style, classical tone, instinctive comprehension, and primitivistic orientation to the world. Colette has often been called the descriptivist of nature par excellence, but she has been accused equally often of shallowness, superficiality, and a lack of concern for larger human problems.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 77 , Issue 1 , 1962 , pp. 140 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1962

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References

Notes

1 For the former point of view, see: Jean Cocteau, Colette (Paris: Grasset, 1955); Léon-Paul Fargue, Portraits de famille (Paris: J. B. Janin, 1947); Jean Larnac, Colette, sa vie, son œuvre (Paris: Simon Kra, 1927); Elaine Marks, Colette (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers Univ. Press); Thierry Maulnier, Introduction à Colette (Paris: La Palme, 1954). For the latter: Marcel Arland, Essais critiques (Paris: Gallimard, 1931); D. Mondrone, S. L, “Da Colette a Sagan,” La Civiltà Cattolica, iv (1954) 436-444; Marcel Wiriath, Silhouettes (Paris: Editions Self, 1949).

2 Maulnier, pp. 68-69.

3 Joseph Warren Beach, The Twentieth Century Novel (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1932), p. 74.

4 Larnac, p. 192 ff.

5 All page references to Chéri and La Fin de Chéri are taken from Œuvres complètes de Colette, Vol. vi (Paris: Flammarion, 1949).

6 Irene Frisch Fuglsang, “Le Style de Colette,” Orbis Litterarum, iii (1945) 3-6.

7 Larnac, pp. 200-201.

8 See “Clouk et Chéri,” in Mes Cahiers, xiii. Clouk is the original model for Chéri. The series of short sketches Colette devoted to him served as the basis for the later novels, Chéri and La Fin de Chéri.

9 “Je me souviens d'avoir contemplé ce jeune homme, ou un autre, de lui avoir parlé en moi-même” [italics mine] p. 11.

10 Season and age are paralleled in Léa's reaction to the autumn rain: Chéri announces his forthcoming marriage, Léa turns her head toward the window and Chéri asks, “Qu'est-ce que tu as?” She answers, “Mais je n'ai rien, je n'aime pas cette pluie.” This type of nature evocation may well play a structural role in the two novels, as has been suggested by Helmut Hatzfeld, Trends and Styles in Twentieth Century French Literature (Washington, D. C. : The Catholic Univ. of America Press, 1957), p. 53.

11 “L'univers de Colette a ceci de commun avec celui de Balzac, que l'argent y existe, y a une odeur, la sale odeur qu'il a pour Julie de Carneilhan.” Claude Roy, Descriptions critiques (Paris: Gallimard, 1949), p. 111.

12 Maria Le Hardouin, Colette (Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1956), p. 83.

13 Gaston Bachelard, La Terre et les rêveries de la volonté (Paris: Librarie José Corti, 1948), p. 13.