Review

Author(s): Anne C. Vila

Review by: Anne C. Vila
Source: MLN, Vol. 105, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1990), pp. 1095-1100
Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2905176
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 M L N 1095

forcefullyin the promisingopening chapters,so thatshe repeatedlycon-

firmsof the textsshe reads only that,
autobiographical is a discursive
writing and materialpracticein whichgendered
isconstructed,
subjectivity confirmed and sabotaged.Suchtextsmayworksimul-
taneouslyforand againstthe ideologiesof identity whichprevail.They may
sometimes seemto resolvecertainmanifest contradictions
in ordertoaffirmthe
humanist self,butjust.as oftenthetextsmaybe readas subverting hegemonic
formulations of identity.
(37; thispassageconcludestwopageswheretheauxil-
iary"may"occurs19 times!)
One cannot escape the impressionthatthissounds ratherlame in view of
the complex theoreticalstructuresand strongpoliticalclaims set in place
in the opening chapters. One learns instead merelythat "if eighteenth-
century autobiographical writing... helps to construct the necessary
monolithicand unitarysubjectof the politicaland economic,it also ques-
tionsand revisesthatconcept of 'self' " (55).
Finally,although Nussbaum persuasivelyconteststhe pertinacityof a
modern poetics of autobiographyto the period, when she subsequently
argues thateighteenth-century chroniclersof the self feltunder pressure
to conformto a genericgrid imposingthe paradigm of a "unitarysubject"
or "character,"it is difficultto see exactlywhere the conflictcomes from
-unless we allow thatthe paradigm postulatedby modern taxonomistsof
the genre exerted strongerpressure than Nussbaum admits,or that the
modern critic-Nussbaum herself-is producing those generic conflicts
she claimsthe textsmanifest,by herselfonce more backprojectingmodern
generic expectations onto those narratives. Thus, at times Nussbaum
argues thatthe period is one during whichthe "unifiedself" as a generic
expectationwas in formationand not yetstabilized,yetat otherpointsshe
seems to assume that it is already quite forcefullyin place, producing
those conflictsshe locates in the text.
Though thereis matterhere to quarrel with,thereis certainlymuch to
admire and applaud. Provokingfurtherreading and debate must surely
be the mark of solid scholarship,and in TheAutobiographical Subject,Feli-
cityNussbaum has givenus new incentiveto examine some forgottentexts
afresh.

TheJohnsHopkinsUniversity SHAUN IRLAM

Dorinda Outram, TheBodyand theFrenchRevolution. Sex,Class and Political

Culture.
New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1989. 197 pages.
From the outset of her provocativebook TheBodyand TheFrenchRevolu-
tion,Dorinda Outram makes it clear that her scope is wide-rangingand

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1096 REVIEWS

ambitious: in her words, she "dares to integratetwo such extensively-

and differently-investedareas as the historyof the French Revolution
and the historyof the body" (6). In fact,Outram's attemptto reconcile
those two subjectsentailspursuingfouror fivecorollaryprojects:takinga
critical historiographiclook at the various perspectivesthat have been
brought to bear on both the body and on the Revolution; reviewingthe
so-calledrevolutionthatoccurredin medicineover the course of the eigh-
teenth century; approaching the neo-Stoicism embraced by bourgeois
male revolutionariesfrom a new, body-consciousangle; and analyzing
how gender and class affectedthe process of "embodiment"in the highly
charged public atmosphereof revolutionaryFrance. What tiesall of those
discussions togetherinto a single book is their common preoccupation
withthe body, which Outram sees as a privilegedspace in whichrevolu-
tionaryideals were consciouslyinscribed,tested,and foughtout.
Clearly, Outram's docket of areas to be integratedis chock-full;and,
just as clearly,the stakes of her studyare deliberatelyset high. For Ou-
tramseeks not merelyto demonstratehow all of the issues sketchedabove
can and should be treated as overlapping,but also to launch a series of
open and at times aggressivechallenges (terms such as "discursivelyre-
ductive"and "gender-/classblind" abound) to virtuallyall of the scholars
who have dealt, in one formor another,witheither the relationshipbe-
tween the body and the state,or withthe French Revolutionas a possibly
paradigmatic moment in the development of modern political culture.
Those somewhat distinct arguments are broached in Outram's three
opening chapters,where she takesa curiouslypolemical approach to both
the near-canonical studies of the body that have been produced by the
likesof NorbertElias and Michel Foucault, and to analysesof the Revolu-
tion put forthby such diverse historiansas the Marxist Soboul and his
most influentialchallenger,Francois Furet-all the while deployingand
synthesizingcertainof theirtheoriesfor her own purposes.
It should be noted thatthe manyproblemsOutram findsin all of these
scholars' theories,as well as the raisond'etreof her own correctivehistory,
stem fromthe politicalagenda she explicitlyespouses: to suggestwaysof
resurrecting"the French revolutionaries'concern about the public role of
the body" in order to combat what she calls the "trivialized"body of the
twentiethcentury(trivializedbecause the individualcan no longeruse it to
carryany politicalauthority,i.e., throughthe mode of heroic personifica-
tion thatcharacterizedRevolutionaryFrance [23-26]). Thus a veryspecific
purpose underlies Outram's search for paradigmaticpatternsof physical/
politicalbehavior on the part of participantsin the French Revolution-a
purpose that,considered in retrospect,partiallyexplains the intensity with
whichshe criticizesso much of the scholarshipthathas been produced in
the differentfieldsshe seeks tojuxtapose.
The basic thesisof TheBodyand theFrenchRevolutionis founded upon a
readjusted versionof NorbertElias's notionof homoclausus-the figureof

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 M L N 1097

the quintessentially"modern" individual,whose physicalboundaries are

sharplydistinctfromother bodies, and whose spontaneous impulses are
kept carefullyin check. While she agrees with the link Elias establishes
betweenthe advent of homoclaususand the formationof the modern state
(two key components in what he calls the "civilizingprocess"), Outram
accentuates the moment that, in her view, Elias overlooks: namely, the
French Revolution, a, time when the qualities associated with the homo
clausus figure came to reside exclusivelyin the middle-classmale body.
Outram's historicalnarrativealso incorporates Bakhtin's notion of the
"carnivalesque" body (which she uses as a tidyshort-handterm for the
lower,peasant classes) and the notionof the sensitive/effeminate body that
was so widelycelebratedduring the period prior to 1789. Homoclausus,as
she describes it, came into violentconflictwithboth of those competing
figures during the Revolution,because each represented the "embodi-
ment" typicalof a radicallydistinctsocial faction,onlyone of whichcould
attain a position of politicaland cultural supremacy(16). Outram claims
that her thesis is innovativein that it brings to light the power of this
"embodiment" process in allowing an individual to take an active, self-
conscious role in politicalculture; she adds that her approach avoids the
shortcomingsof both Foucault's asubjective,ahistoricaltreatmentof the
relationshipbetweenbodies and politics(18-20), and the exclusivelyverbal
definitionof politicalbehaviorused by Furetand his followers(22, 32-35).
Outram embarks on her revisionisthistoryby consideringhow, in the
last decades of the old regime,a "new medicine" was created that "went
far to create the body of homoclausus"(48). Accordingto the account Ou-
tramprovides here, all of the major trendsof mid-to-lateeighteenth-cen-
turymedicine support her theorythat the rival images of homoclausus,
oversensitivebody, and carnivalesque body were heading toward a clash
of values and behaviorsthatculminatedin a highlyrestrictive assignation
of political authorityduring the Revolution. In making that argument,
Outram weaves togetherthreedistinctphenomena: 1) the medical profes-
sion's mid-centurydrivetowards"health"and "hygiene,"withitsemphasis
on the individual's stewardshipof his body, catered largely to the very
same bourgeois elite that was to assume power during the Revolution
(47-49); 2) the medical advice and therapypurveyed to those outside of
thissocial class was fardifferent,in thatit was aimed not at self-possessed
individuality,but at collectivitiesthat could be manipulated by the new
hospital medicine (44-45, 51-53); and 3) the ongoing theoreticaldebate
over the dynamic forcesof livingmatter-crystallized in endless discus-
sions of the properties known as irritability and sensibility-created an
"insecurity"concerningthe formerlysacral part of the body, the rational
soul (54-56).
Seen throughthe lens of Outram's preoccupations,these trendsadded
up to a "medical revolution"whose primaryconsequences were cultural
and political in thrust-for example, "an insistenceon even more self-

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1098 REVIEWS

control of body image and especially body outline,once the Revolution

began; and an increasingdesire to subject the bodies of the lower social
classes to medical control"(56, Outram's italics).In other words,Outram
recasts the changes that occurred in medical practiceduring this period
such that theyappear to forma breeding ground for revolutionaryclass
conflict,through the medical profession'spreferentialreinforcementof
the bourgeoisie'sdevelopinghomoclaususself-image.Likewise,she reduces
the most centralissue of eighteenth-century medical theory-the nature
of sensibility,
especiallyin relationto rationality-to its politicalrepercus-
sions, by addressing it solely as a causal factorin the middle-classmale's
"anxiety"over social elementsthatseemed to threatenthe rationalcontrol
and proper form he himselfsought to embody (58). In short,Outram
depicts eighteenth-century medicine not according to its own internal
logic or "agenda," but ratheraccording to hers,whichtends to transform
the medical field into a tool for an hypostatizedmiddle-classbody intent
on grabbingpower howeverit could (67).
Yet despite the questionable way that Outram deploys medicine to
create (somewhat'a la Dr. Frankenstein)the monolithicmale middle-class
body she viewsas the neglectedstaramong the actors/actants of the French
Revolution,her subsequent treatmentof that body is largelypersuasive.
Outram's success in the well-coordinatedtrio of chapters that followher
medical overviewis due to her sustained focus there on the beliefsand
practicesused by male bourgeois to confrontthe new politicalorder and
public lifeof the Revolution(68-69). It is in these chapters(chs. 5-7) that
Outram explains what was entailed in the operation of "public embodi-
ment for individuals" at a criticalmoment in Western civilization,and
makes her argumenton the importanceof thatprocess both to the subse-
quent historyof the body (as a drive towardthe formationof homoclausus)
and to the course of revolutionaryevents.
Outram begins by explaining preciselywhat the middle-classmale was
strivingto embody, in the face of the many political and social crises
broughton by the Revolution: first,an individual ethos of Stoicism,up-
dated fromthe models furnishedby classical textsand theirRenaissance
commentators(69-72); and second, an eighteenth-century pantheon of
"great men," secular "reference-figures" who displayed ideals like virtue
and self-sovereignty (72-76). These two sources provided the men of the
Revolution with heroic roles to play, qualities to personifycontinuously
and publicly,as actorsin whatOutram calls the "theater"of contemporary
political culture (78-80). Outram centers her interpretation on the
middle-classmale's "'Stoic' self-presentation," as evidenced by the virile
rhetoricabundantly produced by and about individuals like Saint-Just,
Bailly, Danton and Robespierre (along withlesser-knownbut equally ill-
fatedbourgeois). This rhetoric,she concludes, demonstratesthatall were
engaged in an intense identificationwith"heroes of austerity,principle,
dignityand reserve"(79) thatallowed them to assume a potentdegree of

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 M L N 1099

politicalauthorityin theirverybeings. Here, however,Outram is careful

to mark her differencefromearlier,hagiographicinterpretations of Rev-
olutionaryStoicism,largelyby underscoringthe related elementsof "the-
atricalityand publicity"that were involved in the revolutionaries'enact-
mentof such ritualisticheroicroles (85-87); and by pointingup the ambig-
uous legacy that was leftby thisbrand of neo-Stoicism,which,because it
was "preoccupied withpersonificationratherthan action,"could be read
as a recipe for passivityin the face of mass terror(89, 117, and passim).
In what comes across as; an implicit defense of the revolutionaries
against such a charge, Outram devotes two chapters to reexaminingtwo
phenomena thatshe considersinextricablylinkedto theirparticularStoic/
homoclausus credo: first,the prevalence of "heroic" suicide among dis-
graced membersof the Revolutionaryelite; and second, the dignified,de-
tached demeanor assumed by the bourgeois who were sent to the guillo-
tine,whichOutram colorfullyrefersto as a place where "the peasant and
artisancrowds subjected the actual bodies of membersof the middle and
upperclasses to active public deconstruction"(63). Outram's sometimes
overwroughtrhetoricnotwithstanding, thesechaptersofferseveralhighly
suggestiveinsightsinto the many-layeredfunctionsserved by the "Stoic
poses" and/or acts of middle-classmale revolutionaries.First,they con-
nected the individual with centuries-old notions of freedom, republi-
canism,and exemplaryvirtue(96). Second, theyprovided doomed bour-
geois witha final,politicallypowerfulact of "theater,"in that theywere
played out before a chosen public audience-a functionseverelythreat-
ened by crowd apathy before the spectacle of the guillotine(118). And
finally,theyserved to "freeze and maintainthe meaning' of individuals,"
therebycontributingto a growing bank of writtenlegends of Revolu-
tionaryheroism(103-104). Not incidentally,these gesturesof heroic per-
sonification also served a defining function for the social group that
sought to be the new public body, to the exclusion of all other groups
(104). That is, as Outram describesit,the homoclaususfigurethatrose to
public prominenceduring the Revolutionwas founded upon the cultural
marginalizationof femalesand working-classmilitants,bothof whomrep-
resented, in differingways,a more "natural" body, "withall its energy,
and all its inconvenienteffusionsof tears and passions" (1 17).
This body, whichbourgeois men stroveso mightilyto "manage, control
and remove fromview,"is resurrectedin one of the book's finalchapters,
"Words and Flesh: Mme Roland, the Female Body and the Search for
Power," where Outram undertakesto provide an account of "female em-
bodiment" during the Revolution that would complement and contrast
withher discussionof male Stoicism.Unfortunately, Outram's use of Mme
Roland as a case studyin the Revolutionarywoman's quest for heroismis
disappointing-all the more so in that this chapter is Outram's only ex-
tended attemptat performingher own close reading of primarymaterial,
using Mme Roland's much-commented-uponmemoirs and correspon-

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1100 REVIEWS

dance. The weaknessesof Outram's analysishere are more literaryin na-

ture. Her interpretation of how Mme Roland wentabout producinga dis-
tinctlyheroic physical identitytends to aggrandize both Mme Roland's
"tgender-specificexperiences in the lived body" (namely, her breast-
feeding saga, which Outram reads in Freudian terms [142-45]), and the
literarycliches that pervade Mme Roland's memoirs. Outram seems to
find Mme Roland's exclamationsof intense"sensitivity" to the experience
of novel-readingexcessively"striking,"and is far too hastyin concluding
that Mme Roland lived her life not just like, but as the heroine of an
epistolarynovel, whose whole bodily history(as wife,mother,lover, and
finallyRevolutionaryStoic) ultimatelybecame a tissueof words (137-39).
Outram's too-literal"reader-response"mode of analysis in this chapter
both sells Mme Roland shortby turningher into a person modelled en-
tirelyon culturalcommonplaces,and underestimatesthe "sensibility cult"
in whichMme Roland was indeed participating,by payingno heed to the
complexitiesof its contemporarytheoreticalconstruct.
On balance, then,the resultsof TheBodyand theFrenchRevolution are as
mixed as the subjectsand figuresit seeks to elucidate. That impressionis,
unfortunately, reinforced by the shoddy editing evident in certain
chapters,where inexcusable mistakesin French plague both the passages
Outram transcribes(thereare 5-6 glaringerrorson successivepages 85-86
and 111-112) and the termsshe sprinklesinto her own discussion(i.e., "le
bien publique" and "le souvereign"). This, in addition to three or four
errors in citing other works in footnote,mars on otherwiseattractively
packaged book. However, despite these technicalproblems,and the more
substantialconceptual difficultiessketchedabove, Dorinda Outram's book
is an intriguingand timelycontributionto our understandingboth of the
French Revolution,and of the body's importanceas an object of cultural,
political,and historicalinvestment.

of Wisconsin-Madison
University ANNE C. VILA

SandyPetrey,Realismand Revolution:Balzac, Stendhal,Zola, and thePerfor-

mancesofHistory.
Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress, 1988. 211 pages.
"For the smooth or 'happy' functioningof a performative... there must
exist an accepted conventionalprocedure having a certain conventional
effect....' This isJ. L. Austin'srule A. 1 (How todo ThingswithWords),the
lever withwhichSandy Petreyintendsto move the worldof realistfiction.
In a studyencompassingSarrasine,Le Pere Goriot,Le Rouge et le noir,and
Germinal,the author uses (veryselectively,by his own admission) some of
the premissesof speech-acttheoryto produce compellingtextualanalyses,
manyof whichdirectlychallenge earlier,widelyinfluentialreadings.

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