- Title
- Paper trails: the Austrian passport system in Stendhal's La Chartreuse de Parme
- Creator
- Gulddal, Jesper
- Relation
- Arcadia Vol. 49, Issue 1, p. 58-73
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/arcadia-2014-0004
- Publisher
- Walter de Gruyter GmbH
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2014
- Description
- A striking yet overlooked feature of Stendhal's La Chartreuse de Parme (1839) is the prominence that this novel accords to passports and movement control practices. This feature is a product of the novel's historical surroundings. During the post-Napoleonic Restoration, the passport had become a favoured instrument of power for absolutist governments across Europe, and the Austrian Empire in particular had set up a notoriously restrictive passport system, extending also to the Austrian possessions and client states in Northern Italy - the scene of Stendhal's narrative. Tracing the numerous references to the Austrian movement control regime, this article argues that the passport motif should be seen, not simply as a 'reality effect' or a metaphor for identity conflicts, but as an interface linking a specific political practice and a specific literary form. Thus, the novel provides ample historically accurate information about the contemporary passport system, yet at the same time uses this information as a structuring device that crucially informs the articulation of its space, plot, and major themes. By virtue of this structural centrality, the passport motif opens up a new political dimension in a novel that has often been seen simply as an escapist fantasy.
- Subject
- Stendhal; passport; realism; literary motifs
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1302908
- Identifier
- uon:20573
- Identifier
- ISSN:0003-7982
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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