Desire and immobility

This thesis focuses on the abundance of necrophilic imagery in nineteenthcentury French literary texts. Its aim is to take an aspect of the century's writing which is often overlooked, perhaps because of its disturbing nature, and to reread key texts in the light of this predominant motif. This creates a paradigm for reading mainstream literary production through the lens of perverse desire.The first chapter situates the literary texts in a historical context, by examining briefly the morbid preoccupations of art, social theory and the psychiatric discourses in the period. Psychoanalysis is discussed, both as a product of its contemporary imaginative moment, and as a useful tool for the study of desire in literature.The following three chapters each focus on the literary works and aesthetic theories of a single French writer, namely Théophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire and Rachilde. By means of close textual analysis of stylistic features, form and imagecontent, the changing treatment of the theme of necrophilia through the century is examined.The aesthetic theories of Gautier and Baudelaire are read at the psycho-libidinal level, alongside psychoanalytic theory, to reveal death-driven aims. The chapter on Rachilde examines issues of gender and misogyny, by focusing on a female author whose work shows evidence of necrophilic themes. I ask whether her work imitates a masculine position, or whether the necrophilic imagination may transcend questions of gender. This discussion calls into question previous critics' readings of aesthetic necrophilia as a purely misogynist trend.In the French texts under examination, the subject's ambivalent relation to death comes into focus. By exploiting literary devices, a new way of understanding the desire for death is proposed. Textual necrophilia is read as going beyond gender positioning and individual sexual curiosity, to signal an awareness of death and destruction-seeking energies tout court.