Modes of Seduction ― Sexual Power in Balzac and Sand

This volume studies representations of seduction by two nineteenth-century writers whose works paint intersecting pictures of French society during the Restoration and July Monarchy, highlighting both continuities and discontinuities between Ancient Regime and post revolutionary literature and society. The realm of seduction - where forces of desire, power, and sex converge - provides a focal point for Schocket's analysis of gender stereotypes and their subversions, the ties between the sexual drive and the desire for self-affirmation and power over another, and the factors such as class and sex that shape one's identity and ability to influence others. Through its examination of Balzac's and Sand's representations of seduction from the perspectives of feminism, psychoanalysis, and cultural studies, this book sheds light on erotic relations and the ways in which they are embedded in wider issues of subjectivity and political and social structures.

Deborah Houk Schocket has published articles on dandyism, identity, and seduction in nineteenth-century French literature. She earned her BA at Rice University and her PhD at the University of Pennsylvania. She currently teaches French literatur, language, and culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.