Evil: A History in Modern French Literature and Thought

In this original interdisciplinary approach to evil in modern Frenchliterature, Damian Catani shows how literary representations of evil arecrucial to understanding our contemporary moral and political climate.  Catani creates a balancedconceptual and ethical framework to read the work of major French writers andthinkers. His close readings of texts are informed not only by philosophicaldefinitions of evil, but discussions ofthe historical context. Beginning with Balzacand Baudelaire in the Restoration, Catani covers 19th-centuryinterpretations of evil in the work of Lautréamont and Zola, analysing how theCatholic misogynistic stereotype of the 'evil feminine' and new scientifictheories impacted their work. Moving into the twentieth century, evil isexplored in terms of the Self, ennui, power, knowledge and politics throughreadings of Proust, Céline, Satre and Foucault.By bringing together aesthetic,philosophical, historical and ideological concerns to read some of the mostimportant texts in modern literature, this study argues why a broadertreatment of literary evils is vital to enlightening historical evils.