Decision in the Chartreuse: Stendhal on Stage

Abstract

Stendhal’s composition of the Chartreuse de parme takes us through an operatic scenario where all is stage effect, the excitation of the audience through conventional devices. We have a political novel acted out for emotional logic, a historical romance following Scott but subjected to classical irony. The subject disappears in the fireworks of words, and we have through exciting actions an example of the text digesting itself, a game, a novel (shockingly!) about nothing. It is a different direction for the novel craft, a novel acting the part of a novel. It is Stendhal.