The Mask of the Muse. Visuality and Narrative in Richard Le Gallienne’s The Worshiper of the Image

Abstract

This article is a close reading of The Worshiper of the Image (1898), a tragic fairytale by Richard Le Gallienne — a symbolist allegory, whose female character is a coming-to-life visual image. This character is distinguished by polymorphism which manifests itself both in the story’s plot and in the character’s mythical autobiography, namely, in her reincarnations over centuries. The visual hypostasis of this character is L’Inconnue de la Seine — a popular and mysterious kitsch object, the mask of a girl who allegedly drowned in Seine in the second half of the 19th century. The interaction of the Image with other characters is determined by the concept of contagion, i.e., immediate power contact which alternates with abstract allegorical interpretations of the Image (considered, for example, as the embodiment of Art or Beauty); in the course of the narrative, the contagious image gradually displaces the story’s living characters, including the wife of the main character who uncannily resembles and doubles the image. These narrative and visual collisions reflect a precarious position of the visual image in the decadent culture — a conflict between the visual image and narration: the narration fails to provide an exhaustive ekphrastic description of the image and evasively multiplies contradictory impressions of other characters about it instead.

Keywords

• richard le gallienne
• the worshiper of the image
• visuality
• narration
• allegory
• fantastic.