Severed Heads and Martyred Souls: Crime and Capital Punishment in French Romantic Literature
Poulosky, Laura Jean
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/86258
Description
Title
Severed Heads and Martyred Souls: Crime and Capital Punishment in French Romantic Literature
Author(s)
Poulosky, Laura Jean
Issue Date
2001
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Talbot, Emile J.
Department of Study
French
Discipline
French
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Literature, Romance
Language
eng
Abstract
The introduction provides background information on the contributions of 18th-century writers to early 19th-century thought on the death penalty. The body of the dissertation investigates Romantic authors' common preoccupations with such issues as the psychology of prisoners, their judges, and the crowds at trials and executions; the necessity of expiation and the validity of society's vengeance against criminals; and the martyrdom of the condemned. A number of recurrent motifs in Romantic tales of death sentences are discussed, including the frequent use of the color red to evoke both past and future bloodshed; persistent foreshadowing that the protagonists' heads are doomed, which raises the question of human free will versus destiny; and references to the scheduled time of a past execution as a substitute for naming the bloody event itself. The conclusion treats some of the influences of early 19th-century texts on later works involving the death penalty, including the macabre short stories of Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and the engaged writing of Albert Camus. Thus, the dissertation demonstrates that reflecting upon the 19th-century treatment of capital punishment is important to scholars' understanding both of literary movements and of the political thought of our own time.
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