Musset ou la nostalgie libertine <i>Musset ou la nostalgie libertine</i> . By V <scp>alentina</scp> P <scp>onzetto</scp> . (Histoire des idées et critique littéraire, 433). Geneva: Droz, 2007. 402 pp. Pb €62.24.

In the introduction to this discursive dissertation the author suggests her objective is a consideration of ‘le rôle de la tradition libertine dans l’œuvre et la pensée de Musset d'un point de vue global et organique' (p. 16). Following statements by the narrator in the largely autobiographical Confession d'un enfant du siècle, Ponzetto explains that for Musset ‘le libertinage s'identifie tout simplement avec la peinture des mœurs offerte par ces “romans du siècle de Louis XV” que sans doute […] il lisait passionément et considérait “comme autant de catéchismes de libertinage”’ (p. 23). By their inclusion in Musset's personal library, or references to them in his writing, Ponzetto names these books and their authors, and proceeds to investigate the ways in which they inform his own work, establishing parallels between them as she slowly brings us from the public sphere to the uniquely private: from Musset's preferred geographical areas and interior spaces through traits especially distinctive of his characters, and the language and situations by which they are defined, to an examination, in the last chapter, of the relationship between Musset and his reader (Ponzetto herself) based largely on his distinctive narrative voice. While this approach is thorough, it soon seems repetitive, as the same works often recur under the different rubrics, regardless of their literary merit; and it also makes this study more difficult to consult. Although much of this monograph is concerned with Musset's later work, and particularly the nouvelles, there is little explicit reference to chronology, and no explanation as to why his vision of the eighteenth century, correctly described here as ‘un monde où hommes et femmes auraient pu dire et vivre sans contraintes leurs désirs’ (p. 180), should have come to the fore when it did. This is all the more curious as there is one article at least in print that explains when and how Musset came to prefer what he called the ‘siècle à l'humeur badine’ (see my ‘Proverbe et Madrigal: the Eighteenth Century of Alfred de Musset’, in Genres as Repositories of Cultural Memory, ed. by Hendrik van Gorp and Ulla Mussara-Schroeder (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), pp. 219–29). No less surprising, given her subject, is Ponzetto's refusal to comment on the authorship of Gamiani, the pornographic novel often ascribed to Musset. For all that, her scholarship can be impressive, and the thesis is well written, with many analyses of interest to specialists: the convincing discussion of the influence of libertine literature on Musset's early verse, for instance, the light her perspective sheds on some of his most memorable works, and her engaging, if at times provocative, remarks (pp. 38, 74, 155, 180, 184, 204, et al.) on the character of the creative imagination that moved the remarkable pen of this wayward ‘romantique né classique’ (Arvède Barine, quoted on p. 336).

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