A doll as a character of the Rococo novel “La Poupée” (1747) by Jean Galli de Bibiena

Abstract

The article analyzes the novel “La Poupée” (“Doll”) by a French writer of Italian origin Jean Galli de Bibiena, which introduced into the literature of the 18th century the theme of the doll mentoring an adult. The doll character combines, on the one hand, the ideas of the era about “man-machine”, the fascination with “live” automations, on the other hand, the tradition of depicting fairy-tale creatures, concentrated in Montfaucon de Villar’s book “Count Gabalis”. The writer sets up a kind of an artistic experiment through the play of sensuality and sensitivity. The sylph doll gives lessons in gallantry to a young Abbot who has tried in vain to succeed in love by imitating the coxcombs (petit-maîtres) Libertines. She explains to the hero the diff erence between love generated by feeling and simple sensual attraction. Libertines’ tactics turn out to be untenable. In the end, the reformed Abbot falls in love with the doll, who, while the student was acquiring the norms of sensitive gallantry, reached the natural size of a living being. The ambiguous game of gallant eroticism simultaneously in the fi eld of reality and imagination is emphasized by the novel features of narrative, including the chain of narrators: the Abbot – the “author”-observer of the story, the Abbot, the narrator of the doll story, the doll as a narrator. The layering of narrators creates an uncertain discourse, makes the readers doubt the truth of the story and at the same time makes them suspect that it is real. Despite the fact that later romantics sharply deepen the relationship of the “mechanical” and the “natural”, in Rococo there was already a confl ict between these concepts. However, this confl ict in Bibiena’s novel does not achieve the contrasting absolute confrontation characteristic for the romantic vision. In this text Rococo poetics demonstrates its compromising nature.

Keywords

• “man-machine”
• a doll character
• fairy-tales
• fantasy
• eroticism
• libertinage
• gallantry
• narrative play