The Melodramatic Imagination Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excest “ith a new Preface Peter Brooks Yale Univer Prom New Haven and Londonaie © ye et New ee Cpr © py Re Mian "hsb may te mre vel or lg ta ha yt pl pig ery Sn We te US cpa an py eee are ae ert iri fr pars et Cong ng cd mete 54995 ISIN ono) cle ison na be a ry ‘Tepe ha km epi ep ue Contents Pete 195, reface wo the orga eon 1 The Moar Imagination 2 The Aesets of Anonisiment 3 The Tee of Maeno 44, Melodeama an Romie Dramatition 45 Hac Representation and Signition (6 Henry James and the Melodrama of Consousne Condsion: Meladeams, A Cental Pty ote IndexIntensity and quality of their response: David A. Miller and Susan Goode Calli. Typing of the Baal manuscript was performed with admirable patience snd cate by Shella Brewer. And Ben Grabam of Yale Univenity Pres was ost helpfl and genial editor. ‘The Melodramatic Imagination on wile ps ey romper, esta pa ps de chine que emda a mori ea Rv! Ovearene ‘There is at the start of Balzac’ fst major novel, Le Pass de cag a passage that indicates hove we should read Balza, how he locates and freates his drama, and, more generally, how the melodramatic imagination conceives its representations. When Raphaél de Valentin ‘enters gambling house to play roulette with his last franc, a shadowy figure erouched behind a counter rises upto ask forthe young man’s hat. The gesture of surrendering one's hat forthwith let a series of _queations from the narrator: Is this some scriptural and providential parable? Tanti rather a ‘way of concluding a diabolical contract by exacting fm you a sort of security? Or may it be to oblige you to mainta respectful demeanour toward those who are about 1 win your money? Is it the police, lurking in the sewers of society, tying t0 find out your hates name, oF your own, if you've iseribed it on the headband? Oris it, finally, to measure Your skull inorder to compile an instructive static on the cranial capacity of amber?! ‘he gestures of life call orth a series of interrogations aimed at lveovering the meanings implicit in them. The naratve voice i not ‘content to describe and record gesture, to seit simply as a figure in the interplay of persons one with another. Rather, dhe aerator apple ppresme to the gesture, presure through interrogation, through the ‘of more and more fantastic posites, to make it yield ive up to comeiousnes its fall potential as Throughout these opening pages of La Pea de chagrin, we can bere the narrator presuting the wurface fealty (ue sunace of hiJost i order to make it ye the fl, true ere of his story. In the Foe of the old man who takes the hat, we are told we can read "the ‘vretchenes of hospital wards, aimless wanderings of ruined men, ust on countles mice, Ife sentences at hard labor exiles to Fenal coloniex” The gambling houteiel elicits a contrast Between the "vulgar poetry" of iy evening denizens and the "quivering psson” of daytine gamblers. The crowd of spectators is ike the populace awaiting an execution at dhe Place de Gréve. Finally we ‘each thi judgment: "Each ofthe spectators loked for a drama inthe fate ofthis single gold picee, perhaps the final scene of » noble ie” ry. Use of the word drama ix authorized here precisely by the kind of pressure which the narrator has exerted upon the surface of things. We hnave in face been witness to the creation of drama—an exciting, ‘exesve, parabolic story—ffom the banal stuff of reality. State of Ding beyond the immediate context of the naratve, and in excem of it, have been brought to bear on it, to charge it with intener significances, The narrative voce, with It grandiose questions and Inyprhese, leads usin a movement trough and beyond the wrface of things to what lies behind, tothe spiritual realty sich i the true scene of the highly colored drama to be played out inthe novel. We Ihave entered into the drama of Rapa at god pice; that coin has become the token of superdrama involving Ife and death, perdition and redemption, heaven and hell, the force of sre caught in a death struggle with the life force. The noel i constantly tensed to catch this ‘esential drama, to go beyond the suface ofthe rel tothe truer, hidden reality to open up the world of prt. (One could adduce a multitude of other examples. There is always = ‘moment in Balzac’ descriptions of the ‘world where the eyes Photographic registvation of object yields to the mind's effort to plerce surface, to interrogate appearances. In Le Pie Gore ater a few iii lines of deseription of Mlle Mictonneau, the narrator shifts int the interrogatory: “What acid had stripped this creature of her female forms? She must once have been pretty and well-built: was it vice, sorrow greed? Had she loved too much, been a go-between, or amply ‘courtesan? Was she expinting the tramps of an insolent youth?” (285). Reality is for Balsa both the scene of drama sd mask of the ‘rue drama that les behind, ismsteious, and can only be alld to, questioned, then gradvally cluidated. His drama i of the trve, ‘rested fom the real; the streets and wal Pari, unl presure of ‘re MeLopeawearc nenonarton 3 the narrator's insistence, become the elements of Dantesque vision, leading the reader into infernal circles: "as, step by step, daylight fades and the song ofthe guide gocs hollow when the visor descends into the eatcomi” (2848), "The same proces may be observed in Balzac’s dramatizatons of Ihuman encounters. They tend toward intense, excenive represent tions of life which strip the facade of manners to reveal the eseatial confi at work—moments of symbolic contontation which fully articulate the terms ofthe drama, In Golick, for instance, the ining ‘Comtese de Resta, strggling to preserve an inheritance for her two Iegitimate children, is caught in the act of tying #0 extort her Inusband’s secrets from the oldest son (the legitimate eld) when the comte rites from his deathbed: "Ah" cried the com, who had opened the door and appeared suddenly, almost naked, already a dried and shriveled as a skeleton... “You watered my life with wrrows, and now you ‘would trouble my death, pervert the tind of my own son, tre ‘him into a vicious person,” he ered i a rayping voice "The comteme threw herself at the fet ofthis dying man, whom the last emotions of life mal almost hideous, and poured out het tears, "Pardon, pardon!” she erie, “Hiad you any pity for me?” he asked, “let you devour your fortane, now you want t devour mine and ruin my 200." ght, ye, no pty forme, be atlesibl,” she eid. “But the children! Condernn you wife live in a convent, Iwill obey; to cexpiate my faults toward you Twill do all you command; but let the children live happiy! Oh, the children, the eildren!™ “I have only one child,” anevered the comte,stetching his shriveled arm toward his son in a gee of despair. (2:655), have deliberately chosen an extreme example here, and in quoting it fout of its contest, I run the risk of simply confirming the view, popularized by Martin Turnel and others, that Balzac i a vulgar imelodramatist whose versions of life are cheap, overwrought, and hollow. Balzac use of hyperbolic gues, lurid and grandioee even masked relationships and disguised identities, abduction, loeacting poisons, secret societies, mysterious parentage, and other elements from the meladramatie repertory hat repeatedly been the object of| critea attack, as have, all mor, his forcing of narrative voice to the breathless pitch of melodrama, his isstence that Iie be seen always‘ ‘ie mevopnanarie mAaciNaTioN through highly core lenses. “His melodsama,” Turell omen “reminds us nol go mich of Simenon or even Mrs. Chrisie a5 ofthe ily serial jn the BC's Light Progearame:” Tn is most waspish uls, “Te must_be confesed. that ‘oar ‘experienc in reading Bale ie not always very clevated and tha his Sabre a by no tes on ofthe al" To he vet Unt ener ofthe al” ply repre, succe ofthe peste principle sta ole bye he Sainary "Tul bgt bt his ome of gent bl hi to Balzac charecterni rive to push hegh ener fo decpe sources often. Sch epracnlaons tthe cnc | quoted om Clare eran culminate ld of ru Blea tying oe ‘The progres ofthe narrative cic and authorizes such tein articulations. The scenc reprexnts a vetory over repression, & limactc moment at which the characters are able to confront one lanother with fll expresvity, to fix in large gestures the meaning of their reasons and existence. in the Snterogatons of La Pa de chagrin we saw a desire to path through surface wo a "drama" in the realm of emotional andl spiel reality, so in the scene from Cohsck ‘we Bnd a desire to make starkly articulate all that this family confit has come to be about. “The desire to express all seems a fundamental characteristic of the _mslodrunatlé mode, Noting ir spared because nothing is Feft unsaid ‘he characters sand on wage and utter dhe unspeakable, give vice to their deepest feelings, dramatize Unough their heightened and polarized words and gestures the whole leson of their relationship. ‘They asnime primary psychi roles, father, mothe, child, and expres ‘asic paychic conditions. Life tends, in chie Beton, toward ever more ‘concentrated and totally expresive gestures and statements, Raphaél de Valentin ie given a lson bythe old antiques dealer: "Desi sets ux fire, and pacer destroys terms which reveal the tre locus and the takes of his drama, Eugine de Rastignac, in Le Pre Got, rummoned to chonee between Obedience, represented by the fami, fand Revol, represented by the outlaw’ Vautrin, The metaphoric fexcure of the prove itself sages polarization into moral absolutes Rastgnac’s “law tar of youth,” shed over Gorit’s grave, from the ‘earth wher it fle "rebounds into heaven.” The world is subsumed by fan underlying manichacam, and the narrative creates the excitement ‘ofits drama by puting us in touch with che conic of gos! and evil Played out under the suriace of Uhnge=]uie AK dENPION oF the “rue MELODRAMATIC MNOHATION 5 surface ofthe modern metropolis pirees through to a mythological Talim where the imagination ean Gad a habitat fo it play wih ange Inoral entities If we consider the prevalence of hidden relationships nd masked personages andl occult powers a Balzac, we find that they ‘erive from a sense that the noveli's true subjet is hidden and tnasked. The site of bis drama, the ontology of his tre subject snot aly eatablisheds the arative mast push toward i, che presure of the prose must uncover i. We might say thatthe center of intrest and the scene ofthe underlying drama rede within what we could call the “ioral ocel” the domain of operative spiritual values hi both indicated within anid masked by the surface of reality. "The moral ecules not a metaphysical rystemy iti ather the repository ofthe Eagmentary and destralieed remnants of sacred myth, Tt bears ‘Comparison to unconscious mind, fo tsa sphere of being where our ost basic desires and interdtions lie, a realm which in quotidian fnitence may appear clored off ftom us, but which we most accede (0 Since itis the teal of meaning and vale. The melodramatic mode in large measure exists fo locate and to articulate the moral occlt ‘We shall recur fo these surpmary formations. Its important fiat ‘oextend our understanding ofthe kindof representation of scale fled by melodrama of mansers, and to extend the demonstration Tryond Baz by calling upon his greatest admirer among subvequent tnovelss, Henry James. The melodramatic tenor of James's imagina- tion was beautally caught by his secretary, Theodora Bosanquet ‘When he walked out of the refuge of his study int the world and Taoked about him, he saw a place of torment, where creatures of prey perpetually thrust their la into the quivering lsh ofthe ‘doomed, defesels children of ight Jan's moral manichacism i the basis of vision of the socal world Mahe scene of dramatic choice between heightened moral alterna tives whete every gesture, however frivolous or insignificant it may em is charged withthe confer between light and davkwem, “aivation and damnation, and where people's destinies and choices of Ite seem finally to have lite to do with the surface realities of a Sitnation, and much more todo with an intense inner drama i which hnsiousness must purge foeif and assume the burden of moral inthond. The theme of renunclaton which sounds through Jo Inovele—toabel Archer’ return 4 Gilbert Osmond Seether rt ‘Woolas, Densher's rejection of Kate Cros incomprebensibe and6 ‘se seesoonanarts mecaNarION njtiiable exept a victory within the realm ofa moral ocalt thich may beso inward and personal tht it appears ected tthe Individual consiounesy predicated on th individuals “serie to the ideal” ’As Jacques Barzun has emphasized, James always creates a high lege of excitement fom ht dramatned moral dlemmas, party because of ha preseupation with evil ta poilve fr ver menacing Woe conflict and onburat®Dalec dan apprencceship Inthe rmon noi, noursed him wth Gothic novet melodrama, and frente advestare sary, and invented copesandecbbers fiction “These ae modes which init hat tealiy canbe exng can be eal to the demands ofthe imagination, which in Baleaes case means Primal the moral Imagination at pay with large and bie tial fonfics, With James, the ame inaence ha Been farther taser into the rama ‘of moral conscouaneas ao that excitement drives rom the character? own dramatized apprehension ofclahing moral fre ‘famous sentence fom the peace to The Poa of «Lah suggest James intone He is describing lsbes wig of dacvery, the night Be ate up and sakes ber mind move fram discovery 0 dlcovey shout Gilbert Oumond “Te "uy Jame, a representation simpy of hier moinley swing and an ater witha to make the mee ill uci of her act a interesting’ atthe uri of a caravan or the ‘deaicton of« pirate"? The tems of reference inthe adventare story are mocked yet they remain the terms of reference” moral onciouinen mst bean adventre i recoqaiion mat bet etal of 4 heightened drama, “The exement and violence ofthe melodrams of consciousness are cbviouly and dervaively Babacian in ich an ay novel at The ‘Anorcan Cheitopher Newman's initation int the epemology of fond and evil ir reprerented through « dark ancewral cme hidden [Beneath and sugested by, the gilded marae of Faourg Sin Ger. ‘main scey: depts open benenth the wellgaraed etl image of the ellgarde funiyy crisis revelation soy and. News's conscouien must open to receve the ard, fating hts of Stelodame: But ven Jom ints and mon tub ton prob Sly on ofall thi cton~—the excement a plot enced Bet excatvely from melodramatic confit within th re ofthe tora ool. There is & premure similar to Bale on the tex ‘ed the te of theta ofthis moral {etheratly 4 lowhaye tatplesariog 1 NELODEAATIC MADINATION 7 in apparent opposition to the quotation from Gat and thereby ‘mggesting the ange ofthe mode—from The Ambasadors: following the feelaton of Mine de Vionnets relationship with Chad, Stether goes to pay her & final visi He stande for the last ime in her noble apartment From beyond thi, and as from a great dstance—beyond the ‘court, beyond the cogs de logit forming the front—eame, as ‘excited and exiting, the vague voice of Pars Strether had ‘long been subject to sudden gusts of fancy in connexion with och matters av these—odd starts ofthe hori verse, suppos- tions and divinatons with no warrant bt thei intensity. ‘Thus tnd vo,on the eve ofthe great recorded dates, the days and nights ‘of revolution, the rounds had come ia, the omens, the beginnings broken out, They were the smell of revolution, the smell of the public temper—or perhaps simply the smell of blood ‘Tha thie vision is ateribed to Strether’s “gusts of fancy” docs not really hedge the bet. James makes the “unwaeranted” vision exist, ‘eves forth fom “beyond” the facades of Paris sniter implication of linpending diester and chace, and pervader the final encounter of Swether and Mate de Vionnet with "he smell of blod.” Their elation ae al along been based on Strether's “exorbitant” commit int to “save her” ifhe could. Here, the evocation of bloody sacrifice, Uliting «sate of moral exorbitance, authorizes the intensity ofthe tounter, where Strether sees Mme de Viennet as resembling Mme Roland on the seffld, and where he moves to his mest penetrating ‘vision ofthe realm of moral forces in which she struggles. "With this Tharpest perception yet, fe was like a chill in the air to him, it was ‘lmt appalling, chat creature ofine could be, by mysterious ores, (Verentre so exploited” (2-284). Stether, and James, have pierced thyough toa medium in which Mame de Vionnet can be seen as child ‘light caught in the claws ofthe mymerious birds of prey. After this peception, when Strether speaks iis to say, "You're afraid for your ‘sv atiulation that mikes ome, makes Mme de Vionnet give ‘yp Mall attempt at a manner” and break down in tears. This stark Iticulaion, which cnrifiesand simplifies Mme de Vionne's position Si pasion, which pts her i touch with elemental humanity (“as a Iakkervant ering for hee young mao,” thinks Strether) and with the Thvnges of tine nally dif lite from the exchanges of the Comte fan Comtente ce Resta! in Gabuvk, The Jomesian mode i subder,‘more refined but it ams atthe same thing: a total articulation ofthe frandiore moral terme ofthe drama, an assertion that what is being played out on the plane of manners is charged from the real ofthe ‘oral orcult, that gestures within the world constantly reler wt to Another, hyperbolic set of gestures where fe and death are at stake, ‘There va pasage from Jameds 1902 essay on Balzac (he wrote ve inal) ehat touches closalyon the problem of melodeamati represen: tation. A notable point about the passage is that it conmitutes = reparation, for in his 1875 esay, in French Pat and Noi, Jars had singled ut, as an example of Balzac ineptitude in porrayal of the aristocracy, the episode in Tasos perdu where Mane de Bargeton, ‘under the influence of her Parisian relation the Marquise d'Espard, Grops her young provincial atachment, Lucien de Rubempré. The two women desert Lucien, whase dres i rideulous and whose plebeian parentage has become public knowlege inthe mide ofthe opera and seal out of the loge. Aristocrat indies would not so violate manners, James argus in the earlier essay, would not behave Inyo fustered and overly dramatic a fashion. His view in 1902 is more ‘nuanced and marks an effort to come to terms with those featutes of Baleacian representation that he had previously eritiined ‘The whole episod, in “Les Musions perdues," of Madame de Bargeton's “chucking” Lucien de Rubempr, on reaching Pars With him, under pressure of Madame dErpar’shockabilicy at to bin coat and trouers and other such matter, is either 9 ‘magnificent lurid document or the baseless brie of von. The ‘eat wonder is that, as Trejoice to put it, we can never really liscover which, and that we fel a8 we read that we can't, and that we aufer at the hands of no other author this particular helplemnen of iminerson. I is dere are always thrown back fn tha; we can't get ut of all we can dost say that the true Itself eant be more than done and tha i the fale in thie way ‘equals it we must give up looking forthe difference, Alone among novelist Balzac has the secret of an insistence that romchow sacs the diflerence nought. He warms his facts into ife—ae witness the certainy chat the episode just cited has abolutely as ‘much ofthat property asif periet matching had been achieved If the grat ladies in question div? behave, wouldn't, cok’ have behaved, lke a pair of nervous snobs, why 10 much the wore, we say to ourselves forthe great lads in question. We ‘ie ooRAnAsie neoRATION ° ww them s0—they owe their being t0 our 40 seeing them; ‘whereas we never ea el ourselves how we should otherwise have Known them or what quantity of being they would on = diferent footing have been able te pat forth? James somewhat baffled admiraion here seams 0 arise from 2 ‘perception of “wureaity” in Balzac representation of the episode the fact that its hyperbolic mode and intensity make it gure more perfectly than would an accurate portrayal of manners what i eally At stake fr the characters and in their relationships. reality does not, permit of such selErepresentations, he vers o ay, then so much the worse for reality. By the manner in which the thing is “done"—by the valty of the narrative performance —we now the characters ‘cently; we are i notin the domain of realty, in that of erat James poses the alternative of judging Balzac episode tobe “either ‘ nagnidicent lurid document or dhe baseless fabric ofa vison” only te conclude that we cannot tll which iti. Ths altemative, and the ‘ion of defen in the atempe to choose, szkes clos to the center {the problem of melodrama. The melodramatic imagination needs Toth document and vision, and itis cenually concerned with the ‘extrapolation from one t0 another. When the Balzacian narrator premires the details of realty to make hem yield the terms of is ‘Ura when he insite that Raphaél's getres refer to a parabolic ory or when he erates «hyperbolic rene of Lucien de Rubemped' octal defeat, he i using the things and gestares ofthe real world, of social ie a kinds of metaphors that refer us tothe rea of spiritual fealty and Tatene moral meanigs. ‘Things cease to be merely Uhenmelves, gevtures cease to be merely tokens of vocal intercourse ‘none meaning is assigned by 4 socal code; they become the vehicles mctaphors whose tenor mgges another Kind of realty. In The ‘inkwuntiny, Stether's dicowery of Mme de Vionnet's affair with Chad is exentally a vehicle for discovery of her entrapment and exploitation by “mysterious frees.” ILA, Richards has given an encompassing definition of metaphor as seton between conten” and inal these eases there isuch 2 ion: pressure on the primary context such that things and fratures are made t release occalt meanings, to transfer significance Tio ancther context® Both Balzac and James weave a rich texture of Iotaphor in thelr pros, and the metaphors most often create an tpanded moral context forthe aarative. But i is wot a question ofmetaphoric texture alone; it it rather that, to the melodramatic Jmaginaton, significant things and gestures are necearily meta: Doric in nacute because they must refer to and speak of something ‘ke. Everything sppears to bear the tamp of meaning, which can be ‘expresed, presed out, from it. The dandy de Marssy, refusing to recognize Lucien de Rubempré in sins pnd, lets his orgnon fall “so singularly it seemed th Bia ofthe guillotine” (4:62). In Le Ls las le vali, the narrator reads in the "Yorced amile” of the dyag ‘Mime de Mortsuf "the irony of vengeance, the anticipation of please, the intonication ofthe soul and the rage of disappointment” (G:1003). Ifwith James we are tempted to belive that gestures recive thelr charge foes socal manners i afterall the cassie view of JJames—ive find that, on the contrary, socal signification is only the ‘erert starting point for an immense construction of eonnotation. One ‘oul adduce this moment in The Wing! of the Dace when Merton Densher learns from Milly Theale’ servant that Mily can’t recive hhim—his, and our, fist indication that exis isa hand [Bugenio} now, as usual, slightly smiled at him in the proces— but ever ao slightly, this ime, his manner abo being ataned, our young man made out, to the thing, whatever it was, that ‘onstituted the ruprue of peace ‘This manner, while they stood fora long minate facing each ‘other overall they didn't say, played a part as well in the sudden jar to Denaher's protected state Ie waa Venice all of evil that hhad broken oat fr them alike, so that they were together in their anaiety, if they really could have met on ity a Venice of eld, lashing rain from alow black sky, of wicked wind raging through ‘narrow pase of general arrest and interruption, with the people engaged in all the waterlife huddled, stranded and wagee, bored and cynical, under archways and bridges? ‘The Jamesian prestdigitation isin fll evidence here. Eugene's light, tus light ale is the detailed token which indiates a larger manner ‘which in turn indicates a “rupeare of peae”—already the vocabulary Js taking on strong coloration—and this rupture then becomes the parsageway for a lod of vl conjuring into existence anew Venice of Storm, darkness, and suppressed violence, ‘We will later pursue in more detail the questions posed by thi metaphoricty of gerture that evokes meanings beyond its literal configuration. We may already be truck by the cemingpatados that the tl expres aged tgs elated tenet of ‘what isto be expresed Gesture i read as containing such meanings Tbecause I is postulated a the meiaphorical approach wo what cannot [be aid Ife often come perilously clone, in reading these novelist, to a feling thatthe represented world won't bear the weight of the ignifcances placed on it, cis i because the repreented world i 20 often being wied metaphorically, assign of something ee. IF we consider inthis light the implications of warks lke The Bet in Be Jesgle and The Sate Feat we fad thatthe more clusve the tenor of ‘the metaphor becomes—the tore dificult it becomes t0 put one's finger on the nature ofthe spiritual reality alluded tothe more highly charged is the vehicle, the more strained with pressare to sugget a meaning beyond. The volence and extremism of emetional reaction and moral implication that we ind in the pre ofboth James spd Balzac may in part derive fom ther lack of clear foundation, ‘ee eatin in an ethical cnmclounest that cant be shown to correspond evidently and necenarily to the way lei ved by most people. To the uncertainty of the tenor correspon the exaggeration, ‘he heightening of the vehicle. The heightening and hyperbole, the polarized conf, the menace and suspense ofthe representations may bbe made nearmary by the eflort to pereive and image the spiritual in | world voided of traditional Sacred, where the body ofthe ethical has become a sort of daar absindius which must be sought for, pontulated, brought into man's exitence through the play of the Spiritualist imagination. We cannot, however, go farther without saying more about melodrama, our understanding ofthe concept and tie of the word, its historical and ideological situation, and ie nature ‘Tue Uses oF Macoonana 1 have tied, in the opening pages, to suggest the pervasive ‘melodramatism’ of two sich important novelist at Balzac and JJames—the very consubstantalty of melodrama with the mode and Vision oftheir exon. But I have nt yet said anything in explication ‘or justfiaton of the word melodrama, its appropriatenes as acrtical term, the reasons for choosing @ label that has & bad reputation and hhas usually been used pejratively. The connotations of the word are probably similar for us all, They include: the indulgence of strong motional; moral polarization and schematization; extreme state ts ions, actions; overt villainy, perseestion of the good,and final reward of vite; inflated and extravagat expreion; dark Pouings, ues, retaking perpety. The fen cre mo have fiven seriou atenon to melodrama, have noted pyholoieal Kanan in allowing us the plese of sepity ae the Srperenes of wolenes brought by the Wentfention wih “nonopthi™ emoton, tn Rober Hetiman’ phe Eric Beney in purtalar has red the importance of mela a a cncepeoppued to nual, txprion of emotion in the puc hetone fm of cash i ‘eprertaton af the quitewetaly dramas" In his dian of fou dramatic pes (meodrama, fre, age, come) Bentleys ‘melodrama fit because it ened the oa pul of drama the ‘ed for dramatization, we might sy, fr seting ta. The tam ces ‘ul ven neeosary, ies poy rn cher wed quite does {©'a mode of high emotional andar chia const tht site comic no tragi in person, strtre, Intent, ect. That the term covers and, in common wage mont often Fer fo cheap and Daca maua-io up opern—ned a ere fw there ia ang fom high vow camp a any tray Belo the mon snc! meldrane bon os thet ae tt tevards tention, int eral wl ain in Senate” aes ‘What I wilsay about meladrama in general wile thik be relevant ‘othe low evample as wll she high, withthe diference that fn alla ela eatemptng tes, inn les more convention ad tes seltcomcioas A ts ont stn the mlorumate de oF conception and repesemasin may appa o be the very proces a ‘eeching fundamental dra ofthe feral ie and ding the tens ‘oexprn it Iii le fo we the term moran were moth ert ference the words leva oon ral popes, Way track rom the ajc moma wd to dase nach ovat Bakac and James one find that mlodrama, proper tage lo tama, conitiaters vile and. Important comer,” Coniseing ‘malay the cai” msladrama ata ft enabled in aree A the dives of the nineteenth century, we And a ly realnal, Coherent heat mode whore urturcr and chnracters a ‘ery purty and even erdiy can tench to rend whole bey of ‘modem lirature witha er pereeton of project. Withow nr Cntering int the cbaaceritieso age moan he met fe text chapter we ean noe tnt wei there an inne ea and ‘tical dram bss on te monica uae god ad on ‘ie MeLopeANAmie MAAGINATION 3 world where what one ives for and by i seen in terms of, and as Aetermined by, the tot fundamental paychic relations and coumie tthical force. ‘The poariation of good and evil works toward Fevealing their presenoe and operation ae real fores in the world ‘Thee conflict sugges the nee to recognize and confront evil, to combat and expel to purge the scal order. Man is seen to be, and ‘must recognize himsel tobe, playing on a theatre that isthe point of Jincture, and of clash, of imperatives beyond -bimself that are fhon-medited and irreducible. hit is what is most real in the Universe. Te spectacular enactments of melodrama sek constantly to fnpress thee foress and imperative, to bring them to striking revelation, to impose their evidence Th considering melodrama, we are in a sense talking about a form of| ‘hearicalty which wil underlie novelist efforts at representation— Uvhich will provide @ model forthe making of meaning in fsonal “Gramatisations of existence The nineteenthcentury novel needs such ‘theatricality ae we salle, to get its meaning across, investi its renderings of life a sente of memorability and significance. With the tte ofthe novela of melodrama, we it the eprint hraare of {tow moral and aesthetic category, that ofthe intresting.) Ts fist, theoretcian may be Dideroy, in hi fort to oablisk the new geare of “ane, which owes much tothe novels of Richardson and in some ways ppefigures melodrama. Diderot: definition of lege sr, intermedi- Ie between tayedy and comedy—but expicily not a mixture ofthe tivo-adarene tel othe “interesting” i fe. What be propose sa ‘eriows attention to the drama of the onfinay: the “picture of the ‘nifrtanes that surround us" the representation of “dangers concern- ing which you must have trembled for your parents, Your fiends yourselves” This should not be read at a recommendation of ‘tural “realism,” On the contrary, Diderot wants to exploit the Uamatic ad excitement dacoverable within the real, to heighten in Aiamutie gure dhe moral exses and pesiptis of life. The dame i ‘hharacteried by its pec form ofthe sublime, which Diderot defines ‘nigh examples of hypothetical speeches the father who has been ‘nurse by his om in old age pronounces, “Myson, we are even I gave so li, and you have restored ie to me"; of again, “Aways tell the Wh, Tg be you by these fot dhatT warmed in my hands when | ‘you were in the era” These enunciation, ike the sitvations that Frame the, proses the prevve“wublimity” of melodramatic shetori: the emphatic artiation of simple arts and reladonships, theclrifleton ofthe cmmic moral ene of everyday gesture. We are ‘car the begnnings of modern sess n whieh Belin and Jes wil ly paras theeffert to make the “weal” : tnd he pate He Inreing trust siterane and geste tat ay bre the rx sakes The word mead means eriinaly, a drama accompanied by sms Ieappears w havent bon ed i ths ene by Reuse, to ‘doeribe «pay in whlch e sought a new eptonal expresity through the mixare of spoken selloquy,putomine, and echt Accompaniment!" ‘The word then cameo characterise rama derived fom panos (iv sompaied by mua) tat 4k no een ny of the cepted pence, Mase wan a moran element in Dideroes tees it was gen a dunble Tin hineeendvcentuy thee and hen ream swap inthe cme porary form that mor flyed and supplanted melodrama the Einema. Jean Peal Sate ar wel dened the eer of masa Sccompaniment ia the lent fl, the ind of clear deny provided fr character and incident, the rigroun neceiy fe cnered on Blo and we are aware of ow nthe eating itil dering Ino and meaning, Even thnagh the sve! hes no ral stab ‘onzoation of the term melodrama remain selevnt. Te ein ddiama neos the dexmanicized language of mass evocation of the neal," is tones and rege Sil, thematic sactaring ‘modulations of tone and rythm and oie smal patterning in metaphorical scne~ar cle wpe to inv plot nt some a he inert and necenity tat nee moder terre deed ete ‘he ubatratum of myth ‘One might he tempt consider melodrama ay a constant ofthe imagination anda cnmant among Ierny mde. could e (as tome eis have propre for the tere hoop and main) oe ‘ypolgcal pole, detectable all pec, ne liiman sugges nis dlpcunions of Babehan and Jactian amt Secs concep ‘kon of the em ino dou vali one nd esol, for isn, tlk ofthe melodramatic in arid in dstintion the tage Sopa Bt mcndrama we need the tema demontrats ialuselnewappeas tobe a pocalinly moder for ae there specie relevance inthe geo labled melocrama ay items into Being in an hore contest. The oi of melt can be acuratel oat within th content ofthe Fresh Reolton a ts ‘tenmath This the epteroogal moment whi I sats wa ‘tn semopaawAti MAGDEATIOS 5 wo which it conibute: the moment that embolicaly and realy, tat th final gosto ofthe atonal Sacred ad es epee ‘Nie tntttons (Church and Monch, the sheng he myth of Civiendoms he ulation of an onan ae trary coesve soca and he validation othe iar forma, comedy of Sanne that depended en such nity Melodrama doe ot Simpy represent atl!” om tagedy bet espns tothe a of the trap vidon It comes ino beng in's wold whee the adn! Iinperates of truth and hin have bec venti thown to fet, yet where the promalgton of tuth and etic, ther itomuraon ava way of i, of amet, daly, pltal comer. When the revolstonary SuiJue exams, "Repeblcan gover then hn au princpe vireo in tear" he ng the Manchester of loam arguing i lg fhe exci iti and imaging 2 tuntion—tbe Romet of revotonary Stopemion wie he word ir el pon to make pent and 10 inte anew mceytolepeat te rine te. A new word, 8 no chwniogy, a eign anew morality ay thin the psp a the revluonay lepstr an partly, in the power of his {ert repreenttons The Revolution atenpt to mcrae law isl, the Repuotic the nation of morality. ete nesenarly produces Inco ited, inesnant supe agent ences ost and within branded a vlainy sburnere‘ moral, who. most be “onfoed ane expunged, ever and over, © aur te rump of Sie, Like the erator’ of the Revlon, meld. ie inept take as icon sn ann de the loeton, expe sm and inpoon of baseband pyc ttt says them td over in ear languagey i rteanes thir conflicts and Comat it refaac the mene of ei andthe event rump of trait made operative and evden. Whe i soi mpitone tay be verlousy reohasonay or comervatie, iit ial cas ‘fly democratic sving 0 sake representations clear and tile to everyone We may lgiimatly lim that melodrama tomes be prncal made fr uncovetng, demenstatig, and tating operadve th excl moral univer fax poseanred this dim med further ation: Te Revs ca bo eo a8 the cone ast atin a procean of desertion that was sein into atthe Renaizae, ped through the momentary eompro- ef Chinn humanien, and fathered torent ding the ‘roe I whic the eplanetry nod cos6 ‘me eeLoonanaric maateation free of sacred myth let it power, and its pote and soi representations low their legitimacy. Tn the cote of is proce, tage, which depends onthe commana parang of the sere techs in the maar—becameinponie'* The cil amen of pagel dob heated somewbinte stn Senry. Racine stands emblemataly st the lt apc playwright (ston athe lat ppt) sd his caves ha ech lo st the increaingifesitoneacounteed inthe apprehension and reproentaton of communal sare imperative The Qual ef he ‘Arlen an the Modern the claw the seventeenth entry was the symbalieannvneatn of tsa’ dvr fom the mythic ‘tbat tha Bad tae hy nent patna Yet bythe end ofthe Enlightenment, there wat clery a renewed thin forthe Sacred a eactonoderaiaion expres in the Vast, ‘movement we think of Romantcan, The race beth renee the eed for ome version ofthe Sacred and oftedfrther poof the itremediable lo of the Sure in ts radona, categorical, unin frm. Mythmating could now only be invida, pemonall an the promulgation of ethical pervs had to depend on an india cto eltandertandng that would ten-~by an magnate or even 2 terorisic leap—be fered athe foundation of a geeral etic. T fut the ent making the sronget claim to acred fats tends more and more vo be personaly isi Prom amid the clap of ether Princes and cern the Indica ego delves cal ad ‘reriding value demand tobe the mestare ofall things The ni Sf modesty i the ft page of Rouma's Cayton, with lnsisence on the uniquenes of hs individual inner beng ib diference fom al othe men, and onthe cet oferesng that being int totaly. The nprtaee attached y Tenn th econ to “say all” ta da menare of the penonaeton and inwardnes of peared this the dificult tr ction nd cxresion® A manic analogue canbe fund in Sas ofr “ny All the psble crimes that se permite in natura erder to prove thatthe only peindpe tbe oberved is tha of the iia tale peastre Melodrama repent bath the urge Toward ‘eacazation and the imponbiliy of conceiving araliaton mer than in peoonal terms. Mladritic good tad ell ar ih ronal they are aged ty they Gai proms ho ined eve no pschologia ome fat who are strngly chart “re metopraaiame mtnornatIon ” ‘Most ncably, vie ilany; tt a wvarthy, eapesenveloped man with ‘deep voice. Gcod and eil can be med as persons are named—and Inelodramas tend infact to move toward a clear nomination of the ‘moral univere, Te rital of melodrama involves the confontation of Cleary Hentifed antagonist andthe expulsion of one of them. It can fffer no terminal reconclation, for there i a0 longer a clear transcendent value 1 be reconciled to, There i eather, a socal order to be purged, ase of ethical imperatives be made de ‘Of particular pertinence in any dscusin of denacralzaion and lhe response to Ht are two early Romantic (“pre-Romante") forms thae infact nourish one another, melodrama and the Gothie novel. Tue Gothic novel stands most clearly ia reaction to desacralization andthe pretensions of rationalism; it represents, in D. P. Varia's Dhrase, "quest fr the muminoas.” Xe reaserts the presence, inthe word of forces that cannot be accounted for by the daylight self and {he elfeufcent rind, Yet the Gothic typically discover that this reawsertion of spiitual forces and ocult sues hidden in the phenome- hal world cannot lead tothe rertcralizaton of experience. The status ‘tthe Sacred as “wholly other™—in Rudolf Otosprase—as a realm Of beng and value recognized tobe apart from and superior to man, i trone and i recoverable, OF the mysterio trond, which Oto Aelines as the essence of the Holy, only the tumedim can be ‘convincingly revived This suc, in fc, i given a dramatization in IM. G Lewis’ The Monk (along with Mary Shelley's Ponknstn the rns intereting and intelligent of the Gothic novels) in relation to the bem of gull and its definition. ‘The monk’s temptress, Matilda, propor to fall pon diabolical aid inthe seduction ofthe virginal Alenia; and Ambrosi, who stll retains vestigial belief in the Cuntian paradox of salvation, resist: "No, no, Mail, Twill not lly myself with God's enemy.” In reply, Mail is Bereely logical in Net description of the changed ontology of the superatural and Alor’ altered relatonahip toi Are you thea God! frend at present? .. . Are you not planning the destucton of innocence, the ruin of @ creature whom he fovea in the mould of angels? Tf not of daemons, whose aid ‘would you invoke to forward this laudable design? Will the Peraphins protee if, conduct Antonia to your arms, and sanction ‘vith hit minitey your ile pleases? Abmurd! But Tam not Ueceived, Ambrosio! Tee not sete which make you reject ny8 ‘ra: MeLopeasarse meNATION fer; you wad accept it, but you dare not. "Ts not the crime which holds your hand, but the punishment; ts not respect for God which retrain you, but the terorof his vengeance! In her logic of the excluded mide (the very logic of melodrama), Matilda demonstrate that Ambrosio har moved out from under the mantle of the Sacred, and that ether are now determined, not by virtue but by teror. Her argument images a world in which God ‘exits il, but no longer ax holy mystery and at moral principle clicting Tove, worship, and respect. No longer the wource and {quarantor of ethics, “God has beoome an interdiction, primitive once within narare that strikes fear in men's hearts but does hot move them to allegiance and worship. Guilt, inthe large renee, may itself Serve from an anxiety produced by man’s failure to have maintained a relation to the Sacred; it must now be redefined in terms of ‘elfpunishment, which requires teror, interdiction of transgreson, retribution. As with the revoludonaryleglator Saint-Just, we have a new alternative bass forthe ethical community: a sentimental virtue {ofthe type often urged in Diderots aesthetics) or else a retributive, Purgative eror "The nature of the traditional idea of the Sacred is clarified (ifort Geert definition ofthe status it maintains in “primitive” culures: “The oly bears within it everywhere a seme of intrinsc ligation: i nt only encourages devotion, it demands it it not only Induces intellectual asen, it enfores emetional commitment,” ® A true Sacred is evident, persuasive, and compelling, a system both of rythie explanation and impli ethics, The traditional conception of ‘the mtr trenton requires man's sense of dependence in relation inolly other" and his feeling f being covered by it. The origin of religious feng, according to Oto, lie in the “primal nurminows "in a religious dread that may have att oot “demonic dread.” ‘The radical emotion isa feeling of the “eerie” and “uncanny.” then ‘laborated into a concept in which the idea of avfulnes and majety ‘exit in relation tthe numea, Matilda's theology sar from the same point, but then evolves toward what a Christan theologian would see as a perversion, the belie in spooks and spirit, where “God” is merely one figure in a manichaeiste demonology Ii asi ‘coming out of the Enlightenment, maa had wo reiwent the sense ofthe ‘Sacred from its ource—but dicovered it now skewed and nares cally fascinated by ie point of origin, There a easertion of magle ‘nun MELODRAMATIC BAAGTATION 9 and taboo, a recognition of the diabolical forces which inhabit our trond and our inner being. Since thse forces achieve no sacred status 1S wholly other, they appear, rather, o abide within nature and, particulary, within nature's creature, man. If the femdom hat Feaverted its presence and force against the reductions of rationalism, the mit tha should modify has becn displaced ftom without to hin. We are led buck to the sources of the “uncanny” in the process of desire and repression analyzed by Freud" The desacral- Eaton and eentimentalization of ethics leads us—as Diderot dicov- ted in reading Richardson-—into "the ecencs ofthe cavern,” thereto tiscover “the hideous Mooe” hidden in our motives and desires” "The Gothic castle, with its pinnacles and dungeons, crenllations, smoats, drawbridges spiraling taircaos and concealed doors, realies fin architectural approximation of the Freudian model of the mind, psiclary the traps lad for the concious by the unconscious and the Fepresed: The Gothic novel seeks an epistemology ofthe depths itis fascinated by what les hidden in the dungeon and the sepulcher. Te sounds the depths, bringing to violent light and enactment the forces Fidden and entrapped thee. The Mout—in which ll the major haracters are nally compelled to descend into the sepulcher of St. ‘Care there to perform ther most extreme acts belongs to a moment tf “claustral” Iterature, fascinated by the constrained and hidden, ‘letermined to release ts energies The content ofthe depths is one Sersom of the “moral occu,” the realm of inner imperatives and ‘lemons, andthe Gothie novel dramatizes again and again the linportanceof bringing ths cccult into man's waking, social existence, ft mying i meaning and acting out i force. The frenzy of the Gotti, the thunder of is rhetoric, and the exces of its situations image both the difcuty andthe importance of the breaking through ‘repression, where victory i achieved, asin melodrama, by finding the tre stakes of the drama. “rhe Mont, this exemplary Gothic novel writen at the dead end of| the Ageof Reasoa, atthe intersection of revolution and reaction, offers 1 particulaey reful dramatiation of pasage into an anxious new ‘atl where the Sacred is no longer viable, yet rediscovery of the ‘hcl imperatives that traditionally depended on itis vital, Rei avery would then be the task ofthe individual ethical conciousness n erage with an occult domain. Melodrama shares many charac- ‘evses withthe Gothie novel, and not simply inthe subjects that tterettaded back and forth between the two genres Tei equallypreoccupied! with nightmare states, with elausration and thwarted ‘scape, with innocence buried alive and unable to voice its lai to recognition. Particularly, it shares the preoccupation with evil at a real, irreducible force in the world, constantly menacing outburst Melodrama is less direcdy interested. in the reawertion of the _numinous for its own sake chan in its ethical corollaries, Meodraima stars ffom and expreses the anxiety brought by « frightening new ‘world in which the Waditonal pattems of moral onder no longer provide the neceary socal ge. I plays out the force ofthat anniety with the apparent triumph of villainy, and it dissipates i¢ with the ‘eventual victory of virtue. It demonatrates over and over thatthe signs ‘of ethical forees can be elscovered and can be made legible, I tends to “verge fom the Gothic noel i is optimism, is lair tha the moral Jmagination ean open up the angelic spheres at well as the demonic depths and can allay the threat of moral chaos: Melodrama is indeed, ‘ypiealy, not only a moralistic drama but the drama of morality: it srivesto ind, oarticlate, to demonstrate to “prove” the exintence of ‘moral universe which, though pat into question, masked by villa and perversions of judgment, docs exist anid can Be made to ase it presence and is categorical fee among men 1am not making an argument forthe direc influence of melodrama proper on novelists lke Balzac and James (though ths influence fin fact discernible), Tam rather suggesting that perception of the melodramatic in their work can usefully be grounded and extended through reference to melodrama. Melodrama isthe reductive literal istic version of the mode to which they belong. ‘The world of melodrama constiutes a temptation for sich as Balzac and. James because it offers a complete set of atitudes, phrases gestures coherently conceived toward dramatization of cssntial spiritual confit. Tt provides the expresive premises and the clear set of metaphors that they will exploit in extrapolated form, with @ more problematical sense of the relation betwen vehicle and tenor. Such writers at Balzac and James need melodrama Because thir deep subject, the locus of theit true drama, has come to be what we Ihave called the “moral gocult: the damain of spiritual forces and | imperatives that is not leary vibe within ceallty, but which they believe to be operative thee, and which demands to be uncovered, rege arcuate In the anes of tre Sacred (and inthe Sineno Indeed of any apeie velgos belt of thes om) they Sonne to bale tat wat mst iportant in aan i eit ‘thet dra and the eel impleaton of his pyc rams. Yet here thy ee dealing in quater and ctiesUat have only tnoctain ontology 28d, psy, an uncertain vay hey are sot eceariy aen inthe same manner, if persed ata, By an ‘Mticne snc the soil easton ofan ete cety with remer Sommaniy of Beno lngerobtsinn. In the manner of the tnloramai, sch writers mt let, expat, demonstrat, Prove the very tem in which the re dein. Ty mat wre the th fom Cchind the faeada 6f Ly tow tir tcatng andthe ‘eran Precely tothe extent that they fe theres dealing in ‘Grcrpr tnd nel Gat have ne ecrtain tao icons dey ive reomne to the demesne, highend epee of incr. ‘We might Sally, dowel 0 ecgnize he melodramatic mide a eiural fact of the medern sensibility (I ake Romantic f9 be the| fen tthe modern ofthe sety ihn wwe are al) inp tht mere tha pally fatto be mrt, un ovr the ody pontulating range and symbolic ems which ite no Crain jsifeaon cae they ave backed by no thesogy {nd no universally aceped oxic. The mal que of Mallee ina Book tat would be the Onpic explicate ofthe earth” of ‘eas far pte ry tholy which wo enable hi to hal Sng though realty and je,” of Norman Mal for drama ‘quate tthe mown—ihe reall verona ration to he Cerignou fing of sanding over the abyss created when the cer center of things has een evaciatd and pend Stating eriap from Rouse decaion that he mut "ey al” inh ~ cere without example” there ka desperate eft to renew ont withthe eater ethical and pyc egment ofthe Sacred though the reprocntton of fallen eal, ining that behind rely, bien by yo ndcted whiny there rea where Thora ove are operat, where large choice fay of blag tt be made The Poet arch tr luminte mur quotas ‘xinone bythe refed ame of he higher conic ama conics act th pipe quate ofthe modes inagiston The melodie tial tmode can bare tenn rary, sa exaplayversion of what the most ambitious art, since the beginnings of Romanticism, hasbeen about. ‘What seems particulary important in che enterprise of the social ‘melodramatissand here one should include, beyond Baleac and James, Dickens, Gogol, Destevaky, Prost, Lawrence, to name only ‘the mest important—is their dual engagement with the representation fof man’s social existence, the way he lives in the ordinary, and with ‘the moral drama implicated by and in his existence. They write 3 ‘melodrama of manners. On the one hand, they refuse any metaphye ‘al reduction of experience and refuse to reduce their metaphorical fenterprite to the cold symbolism of allegory. They recognize, with Isabel Archer during her intense vg that "this base, ignoble world, it appeared, was aller all what one was to live for” (2:197), On the other hand, they inst that life does make reference to» moral occult that i the realm of eventual value, and this insistence makes them ‘more interesting and ambitious than more “behaviorie™ novelists ‘ho, from Flaubert onwards, have suggested that there are not more things on earth than cam be represented exclusively in terms of the ‘materia! world. The melodramatist refine tallow thatthe world has been completely” drained of transcendence; and they locate that transcendence in the strugule ofthe children of igh with dhe children, ‘of darkness, inthe play of ethical mind, Tt comes back, once again, to that altemative posed by James in| reading Balzac, between the “magnificent lurid document” and the “basless fabric of & vision.” To make the fabric of vision into a document, to make the decument lurid enongh so that it releases the Vision, to| make vision document and document vision, and 0 persuade us that they cannot be diainguished, that they are neces ily interconnected through the chain of spsitual metaphor, that "esonances are setup, elecrieal connections establihed whenever we touch any link of the chain, is to make the world we inhabit one ‘charged ith meaning, one in which interpertnal relations are not merely contac of the fash but encounters that must be carfily rurcute, judged, handled as ifehey mattered. It is question, finally, of tha attention co the significant in life that James captured in = amous line of advice o young novelss: “Try 6 be one of the people fon vehorn nothing is los." To be so sensitized an instrument, ene ‘upon thom everything leaves a mark, with whom everything setup & correspondence, isnot simply to be an observer of lift’ urace, but omeane who must bring Into evidence, even ito beng, He's thoval ‘ve saooRawarc MAGINATION 3 substance, So thatthe tak ofthe writer like tha assigned by Balzac (othe eiled Dante, inhi ale Ler Pozi: “He closed himsel in his oom, lit his lamp of ingprstion, and surrendered him to the teriible demon of work, calling forch words fom sence, and ideas from the night” (20:34).Conclusion ‘Melodrama: A Central Poetry ‘Tranronion—punhenban! Pile, ion Thats the ely way." “Tye Conrad a Dries "We work nthe ark—we de what we cane gt hat we hae, Our doa ‘vcar pion and or pion our tae nat sth mado edns Henry James, The Mi Yr We have talked at some length of Victor Hugo, of Balzac and James, We could as ell have discused Dickens, Dottoeaky, Conrad, ‘Lawrence, Faulkner, for instance, whose ambitions belong to the same ‘mode. But we could not have extended the argument to Flaubert, Maupassant, Becket, Robbe-Grilt, possibly Joyee and Kafka, and ¢ umber of others whose stance is radically ionic nd anti-metaphor: | ‘al. They indeed set against the ambitions of melodramatigm. an attiude of deconstructve-and stole materialism, and a language of ‘efationary spicion. Plaubert appears the initiator of the modesn) tention that most consciously holds out an alternative to melodrama, that discerns the void but refuses to read ita the abys of ecealted ngs that rather lets it stand ar the regulatory principle of ‘pitation. Such a work as L'Eawatn Jntnetle rally decane ‘rue the very forces and systems that function in the creation of ‘meaning in the Balzacian or Jamesian novel, Pot and action are ‘leceamatied, voluntarily insignificant. Desire, the relation of intone tion 1 action, the coherence of subjectivity, ambition asthe sll’ brojct ar all stripped of significant stats, shown tobe inauentic or lhuory, Reading L’Séwaton seaimeale superimposed upon Le Pie ovat or Maso pets (reading the text invite), we realize that iis ‘not so mich vison off ast isa form ofthe novelistie that Flaubert. has subverted. Meaning, he implies, cannot be manufactured inthe Balzacian manner. From a search for the hidden signiied and ies metaphorical absent presence we ate led rather tothe play of the signifier: the reader's engagement withthe plane of representation as o Coherence as aytems radically severed frm that which they pretend to record and recount, ther satus a8 pure fon. ‘The couster-radiion of Flaubert stands in contrast to the expres- slonisn of Balzac and James, Thy remain convinced that the surface (ofthe world —the suriaces of manera, the signifier ofthe text—are Indios pointing to hidden forces and truths, latent signfeds. The energy and exces oftheir writing betrays an unwillingnes to exclude fozulted meanings from the systems operative in human life and its fetions. The gestres recorded in the text must be metaphoric of something else Increasingly in James—and this is also tue in Balzac ‘most ambitious momente—the direct ariclation of central meanings is dficaly, dangerous, and even imposible. But this isnot viewed as reason to abandon the earch fo ther. The novel comes indeed to be ‘bout the approach to meaning, about life lived with sigaifrs that ‘re constantly tensed to deliver their overshelming signifeds, The ‘exces of Balzacian narrative rhetoric, and of late Jamesan manner- lnm, records the efor to nugget what would be the (impossible) Incarnation of fal meanings Flaubert is Gnally preoccupied with representation isl as a textual system, with the posites of significant surface, with the manulae: ture of form as itself the signifying act. For Balzac and James, there Appears tobe an irecoverable gap between the plane of represent tion and the plane of signification: the frmer cannot necessarily be rade perfecly to embody the later. There is @ constant efor 10 cvereome the gap, which ger aetruniag, a diorton, a gexculation ofthe vehicles of representation in order to deliver sigoifeation. This |s the mode of excess: the postulation ofa signified in excess of the possbilies of the signifier, which in turn produces an eacesive ‘Signifir, making large but unsubstantiable caims on meaning. Tecan be argued that James never understood what Flaubert was up to and ceneued his protagonist’ limited capacity as “registers and feflectore” without an awatenes of Fauber's deconstructive stance. ‘Yet James it lucid and coherent in the perception that the Flauberian ‘mode makes the Balzacian and Jamesian novel. impomible. To enounce the metaphorical and expresionistc quest, James might fai iy inthe olin 9 iar Cen ae nialy, Aanny, Angas, To push the von, even the oa {het terial AD Kab, aw amie the ela hero efi Maggie Vere. For the arts, aceptance ofthe Flabertian premise means abandonment of Peto doomed bat amiable ain, or of what Dencomb, Inthe mch-qoted ins of The Me Ye, Sh hema of And we liom mach te ae = calling melodrama constitutes the very onions of psy of the noe in Balzac and Jamers undeandng of he fr Melo tama ofered a complete mt of thea sgn, wordy and gets ‘cred Deghened ning, tmp eaventon inthe interpreaion of lay inhabited by sigteant form. Te theaticality onsite the tsa af Bale and dimes art: by rofsring vs to “lie” by way of the theta ‘neu through the readers and the charac ove come OF tr heightened enacmente—they pont sigcant frm, ead ‘out meaning fom the iderences of realty, To state By estate i): they could ot have writen their novels av de Interpretations of realty they nosded the model of reaty made signiant and inepretble Rinse by theta, and partes ie gh prorat yt we ae onc “Tne who standin he Fubra ton acept a the unt, usable standpoint oftheir wring th very “centering” of modern Src ck of «cel pide ape tat tmeodrama represent areal of thi vertiginous bet" pombl tert deerng,& sath fr new penta a he recentring Meldrama tay in hs onaes hae the carats of "cet pea," n the definition of Wallace Stevent pty a the very otter of eonscoumen” in that it responds to he common once in search fe the common ground ett the exe tht the melodramatic imagination aie most had eco he roviinality of i crested center, the constant tres tht fo Peide may bea voi the aeod with each now text and Pevrmance to rete the centr, it does not bay modern We sages that melas may be born of the very anaes created bythe gil experienced wen the allegiance and ordering that pertained w a acre sytem of things no longer obtain Tv the ‘ail edo produce by thi situato itt intense version, by revolution), alli potetally permite, a, Dosorehy es otc reemize, ot Bale and james nv leary natn oral not be permite a rw denonstasion fe poy ot moral order is required. At the moment of what Maurice calls the “prodigious suspension” fired by the Revolution, when the lavw—ocia, moral, natural, rhetorical fall len ev form of enactment and demonstration, a new erie rheorie of moral law acs 19 demonstrate that iti ail pole 1 find an 10 show the imperatives, to define, in conta tperation of basic ethics ‘opposition, the space of their play. Tha they can be staged "proves tha they exe: the melodramatic only es thee empera- tives bat consiouny astmes the role of bringing them into drama- ied and. text provision The ansity of man's predigiou revolutionary leedom, ave in eral mcodeama), but though the roi of morally gil unten tothe ling treads ere property "Through ‘the nit ‘century and into the twentieth (if the ternin as ben vn ye ier), the thought ad ‘Mure ofthe Westra world ae dinate by myers of enfic that Se optena of erenionai cavihaton: mon Sv, the af Hegel Mars an Frew The ht of thee har cea rcvance $0 ‘Relate: Pychoanlis an be ed ava emote eleton of the melodramatic sesh spied Yo the sacred dame of the mind. Pychoanali i veron of melodrama ft fal ‘onoepion ofthe nature of cof, wich fark and unreniting frmably dibling. menacing to the ego which ma fd ways #0 ‘elec ordlchuge fe The Syma of reprenion sod the stra of the repred ge the plot of melodrama Enactnent i secxasy teu he Sltion of symbol w aymbelned (i hysteria, for ‘teas isnot comtlable or jotifable, The Ei of melodrama is ‘oor only partly detained, nthe proces represion and the stato reprened content the uncommon never ready to ac Irate ‘The tote of po sperego and id eggs she sabjacet thanichacon of meodramtc peso and nde the pee chara: {Gro ofen put onthe sage Frew thought iso coe ever ic and hs later formation of the srgsle of Eon and at a explanation fo the tna of both lode trae von td el thr nesmaryfnterdepndenes i trsl lich al unon Wo have already ated te Feeble of clr st the heer of dean Paychoanala a he italia with moar, he darn‘of articulation: cue and revolution in both cases come a the result of, ficulation which ir carifcaton. For psychoanalysis lke) melo- | drama is the drama ofa recognition, I psychoanalysis has become the nearest modern equivalent of rligion in that i ina vehicle for the cure (of souls, melodrama is away sation ward this status, a fist ication of how confit, enactment, and cure must be conceived in a secularied word "That peychonnalyis hat 29 many points of analogy to melodrama i of coutee not surprising, it almost tautological im tha our peyehie Ties are fll of melodrama, and our study of melodrama immediatly suggested that the frm exteriorized world within. Atleast om the moment that Diderot praised Richardson for carrying the torch into the cavern thereto dacover "the hideous Moor” within uit hasbeen fevident thatthe uncovering and exploitation ofthe latent content of hind would bring melodramatic enactments, and that melodramatic enactments would, in their breakthrough of represion, earry the ‘emage of our inner ses, What we have called “the moral occult,” the lens of intense etieal lores fom which man fel himself ext of, yet which he feels to have a real exence somewhere behind oF [Beyond the facade of reality, and which exerts influence oa his secular exltence, stands aan abye or gulf whose deptha mus, cauiously and ‘vith isk, be sounded. When this abyss is located within the mruetare of mind by Freud, itis as dar Unbewus, the unconscious and the Tunknows, which yet must be known throug its effets The signs of the word ae symptom, never interpretable in themselves, but only in term of & behind. If melodrama can reach through to this abyss behind, bring it aver: iruption into existence, i has accomplished part ofthe work of peychoanalysis. "To talk of prychoanalyis at a modern fulfillment and codification ‘of melodrams i not frivolous. And the posibily of doing so suggests further confirmation of the claim that melodrama has become ecewary mode within modern coniosinom, Meldrams and pi) ‘hoanalyst represent the ambitious, Promethean sense-making sj) tems which man has elaborsted to recuperate meanings inthe world. | ¢ ‘We continue to need expresionam, the posility of acceding tothe latent through the signs of the world ‘We have in thir sty largely been concerned with “the melodia mati” a mode, a certain imaginative complex and set of dramatic ‘Conventions which can be seen at work both in the theatre and the hovel. Ils this Kterary aesthetic of excess—and the coierence and DunLooAAuA: A CENTRAL POETHY 203, eouty ofthe excethat ha lanely engaged ovr ate "Sing tmaybe worth coming he veo me Se nine dpi ft rms fone cate If ot Fane boc comeing, may have meted the value wryctite te sinincdon beeen mcotrama and ther aes were fe related but sant diferent erin of eal. ‘Prat Riportant af se other fon are comely and age. Tere poac ayuctre, person outcomes, elec dine fom TES Pima Tis prteulry the dtneon fom agdy that ‘eer Reem are yrsitentyvrounded by sprout or the tgs by ener egileatn expen The daa iar Spree and pected, of innocence wrong, salcy tite age So the dren of dimer a0 Robert Heiman Preerted ne intuson of waa etc o bid event of he Fa eeu pronageswhone abrupt eli, or amination, leads Se Nidate shotfenion st tragie gues’ The reevant ‘Saite in man of thew inances may be Tes wagedy than sere a wat cout hain na resogiion ofthe Se Meese thd hr may be te even when expan canto by ‘ioe and vie usm "Ps duay tre inthe case ofthe drama of pbc and pla eure ‘ar'the mocern pales of created harame~inevtably * Seite olpenomalty nd selicomcis enactments ma imp, we resin’ at of mea arog, where vie a SE ly’ peoratied® Rarely can there be the sgesion_ of Amino and reconciliation terms of higher over of obs eis ined vue that le mater: the modern pial fear i Tier pu ceadnoun bt ith an enemy, Ii mk another seh gol power or leadr, tay bea natal seu Rear es Seeued poverty oc hunger or Simpy infation The TSE i age heen conan bipolar damit he Tes) tang te war, gxining te upper handy om he vee of Seiling expo or te mecumbing, or ctacsnicaly ich TRESS Relarerasm of moder poles meget ain tht Wp ned Sain Jo are the wtnate modes of reference in Te eaangy munich sug of vite, pennalied in he CORIETESSaR Pubtescvntnly im thomsle, against vis, the See She Repel, te wits, the enctzens the nonperns ce Pro Fo wanted oye the ed 0 what pain eaten tn apedy of Werte he selves “Our national204 ‘14s wrtopeaseare mtnarnaTion nghunar ovr" The terms chosen had the unconcios vite of Situating woe an epinde a Water ‘srl interpretive famovork de than tragedy. For rlodama egal nls the experience of hihtmare, whee ioe, repratnatv of the ego, ler apie, Hebplem mile menace play ot hs oat digs The end of the nightmare is an avaicning rough about by cnfontaton and Cxpulon of the sli, the peso fa whom allel Wr en to be concentrated, and a reafimtion ofthe wes of “deen people” Sich an image was no doubt Gtied by mot of America te summer oft. One eon then sin tha the sbeequet pardon ‘rend to the vlan lated the cthurc eet ofthe mend trae ening, inde Intodaced spurious and innpproprnc teen tthe worl of tage, whic the Grint imperative of trey ea make rene elton oa dominant emblem ef rife Ted nw se ould notte sete within the fameweck of aren jimce demanded by melodrama. For inthe sence of any more {tamcondent poncpc, melon rat atthe lt serie Lo ci a pret joie of ponent snd reward espulion nd Plea melodrama filly holon othe dramas played oat every day on tion sens, osx oper the mame sage te Slatin to melden vin ren oper na varou frm, modern tna entertainment iw Grinsted by © lied number af Bed Sb-genrerpolice roy, wetern hemi drama it cee tee ole he cere poste reper of eloramate cence. They provide a ery deteton of wllainn and reso can en be "cguzed snply by unto) of menace ae aon They vet tecfstuaon i which vrwe canbe held rnc nae pte td ciple, while el goes onthe rampage, and they ce igly Cxterrized vento Si vindication ad tumph, at all se forms have bese increasingly “ppchologied”= hat cope mut be ‘pert in human ftom and badinen sre qu Darden fgurs—in no reo vat the miodranatc costes pout meloranae confit har been itconze and redo the ‘anishing pint, buton the contay that pychology ha een ‘xterm, ade accenibe aed mediate tough fl ale {fn ofits muodranats poles "That we ean goon training ounces day after dy with the chau the sine, the oper! operation nevi fo for ity external, peonared, alec one, ad fr rvoonaaca: A CENTRAL POETRY 205 clarfjing resolution. If much of the time we submit to the loge of prohibition andthe necesity of repression at other times we fel the ‘eed for a melodramatized reality, both within and without ourselves. Fr such confit sour constant promise that ie istry inhabited by primal, intense, polarized forcer—forces primal and intense because they ate polarized —that can be made manifet. As Walter Benjamin) argued, itis from the “ame” of fedonal representations that we ‘warm our ‘shivering lives” and this is nowhere more true than inthe Inoot enduringly popular fictions, which nugget over and over a that we do not ve in a workd completely drained of tanscendence land significance, thatthe prigiples of a iperdrama are t be found fear to hand! Such Sctions are both frightening and enlivening, ‘uggiting the overt presence in the world of frees we sense within ‘uralves We both want to lieve, and yet cannot wholly eet that ive live on the brink ofthe aby the domain of ocult forces which, for “bliss of bale” infu an intenser meaning into the life we lead in cveryday realty. Popular melodrama daily makes the abyss yield Some of is conten, makes us fel we inhabit amidst those frees, and ‘they amidst us evaluable to distinguish beoween tragedy and melodrama and to void the spurious trngfcation of experience, parly because it is ‘eful tobe aware ofthe limite of melodrama a aethetic and cultural form, of what it cannot accomplish as wel as what it can, The fll of the tragic hero brings a superior illamination, the anagnorisi that is ‘ath sesrecogaition and recognition of ones place in the cosmos. ‘Tragedy generates meaning ultimately i terms of order higher than ‘one-man's experience, orders invested by the community with holy land tythesiing power. Is pity and exzor derive fom the senve of ‘communal sacrifice and tratsformation. Melodrama fers us heroic ‘confrontation, pargaion, purification, recognition, Bul its recognition In esentially of the integer in combat and the ed to choot side. I producer panic tereor and sympathetic pity, but notin regard to the ‘Sime object, and without the higher illumination of thei interpene tation. Melodrama cannot figure the birth of new socety—the sole ‘of comedy—but only the olf society reformed. And it cannot, ‘inineton wo tragedy, offer resneliation under a sacred mantle, or terms of higher synthesis. A form for seularzed times, it offers the nearest affowh to sucred and coumie values in a world where they n0 longer have any certain ontology oF epistemology. "A elarty in eogard to the we of such anaesthetic orm as208 ‘m seevoonaearic mxcinarion ‘melodrama can fester in usa greater laity about our cultura history, an increased understanding of our historical position, of where we fare,” the kinds of problems we have to deal wit, andthe means we have for undereaking thie imaginative “solution.” The we ofa study ‘of melodrama must atthe last repoxe on & convicklon thatthe study of aesthetic form—modes of cxpremion and representation can” be ‘efi in situating ourselves. Aesthetic forms are mea fr interpret. ing and making sense of experience. Any partial rewriting of cultural history must be a rethinking of how we make sense of our lives of the ‘suocenive epiodes in the enterprise of Aono signs of man as the Te may then be appropriate to conclude with the suggestion that with the death of tragedy and the rise of melodrama, all has perhaps rot been los. For melodrama hat the diinct value of being about recognition and clarification, about how toe clear what the sakes are and what thei representative signs meaa, and how to face them, Melodrama substitutes for the vite of anerice an urging toward ‘combat in lie, an active, lucid conftontaion of evil. I work to sel rman for resistance, it keeps him going inthe face of threat. Even if we cannot believe in the easier forms of reward that meodrams tuadtinally offers, there is viwe in elarty of recognition of what ‘bing fought for an against. "The disipation ofthe mythic order that ‘made true tragedy posible isan irreveible condition that ie better sccepted than masked with spurious appeals to syathetic mythologies, Ina culture whose concerns have increasingly become secularived and ‘exitential the stakes have increasingly become thoae of clea sighted ness and authenticity. Virtue hae Become the capacity to face the bys even if i content may be nothingness, and t0 asuine the burden of consciousness that results from this confrontation. To reintroduce a sense of tragedy in this enoounter i surreptitiously 10 enounce radical freedom, to ofr false hope of reconciliation, Soi that recognition of melodrama's pervasive presence in our represent tions and our thought may be waeful in the recognition of what we have 10 deal with, and what—in all its limitation —we most often hhave at hand for dealing with208 ores To PAaes 1-14 Gus 1 7 Te i ne i Maral he a at eS ea ae reat naa RE ae My ne Secrest See Ss ste ate ‘een Ture ae ae See mca 4 READIES ee ots Vg Bt wh EES jr Wane eas ine narg ehiat one pe ye BITE ie oe aay ea oy Cinna Pro nave yw oh ei cag 8 « Shoes nies ame Sac bea Py Sear aoe a ae jane iy rel sh en eee ee Ba peer ee RESIS mtn Yan tbs ee 1) n,n i 8 1A Ree x Pe, Rhos New Yrs Oxted Unvnt Prn tins ein aes a at anise Scena ae erate sue maby tee ne a take Rot SE ogi Ole etn gy ae hg bl St nt eh 2 replant ne 1 Doss Da, "Ene rf Bi Fee ck, Goh wt Se ae oe i a Se et eet SUS homeo Seem mmscgeny oy Baca aa 3 Rp repeat i rae enemy rn ea pr ne SESH INTTA eete pamt aes ce ee ae See 3 Jeera sare, ‘Les Mats (Pai: Gallimard, 164), pp 10-02. Sic ores To Paors 15-26 209 1 als de Santo, Tnaiosvépbllnes” Sa ner caer (Pa: alia, 7 18 Tike ino wgedy fam Nontrp Feys Aran of Cin (Ginn noon aly re, 1957) pp #191 contin a (ny ew of demcraaton tnd i semath 4 sar argue! wey Tle de ey prc Ene nd Da ee Aaa Nl 69 ened Ldn Pala Si op sg, Senin parr, th ching aap ef ork of Rees ein 18 Deven vara, CONE Pe (oon acer, 7p On ie ‘patton we Lory Nes, Fou the ‘Soi Noa a 96 Bia Ral, hi nt emo edge tr) aber Bt “xe es Romane: A Reaton fhe Gat Novel PE 4909). ax Rad Oy Te ft op [Du Hai ra Jha W Hay (so Miner ree Lenin Ti ak New Ys: Orv rn, Eee Bt, Tin sr nor dae son ge fT Ma he Sl ie en er ins 25 Girt Gr, Et, Word View ad he ino Sar yi, in ‘te hanpaes fate (New Yr Bs ook 17). 98. a4 Sgn Fea he Usa” De Unico Seda Pion {Conon Haprs nies a5, Dao “Hoge chon" nO ei, 3 13 Ain nape sl ru ir Pea ee (7) ey by alee Mal whch Leino nary egg wrten Ta ‘Moa ich be anne as Yue sage Lodo Aner erated ‘Rtn ich Lov mys bve tne Le Gen Ps rs ‘Sipe Oma oo And te a ey ae pari oe ‘mony pete, St my dene of Puts an Tre ot ‘Tenia Sper Sos Robo Saco, “The Ginr Thee i Fhclh Prone Th Fe nt Ser He ts tie Wi Nowe, Ri Sure Bd Ste Oxo Canon 32) Torun af At sienna yl Sp wl te ‘lenin he Go el he Reena aay rene By ‘temo sir fhe cule apr coat he Mert Sc he cuy "de ar x ramam" Ooo (a Cercle Lie Frei 8,15 yey fama of Pen The ft Nol La el New Yen Vinge Bn 8) 1 On he Corian cnc of abit se Onave Nad Le Sasi Tear Pare oil (arts Cali 998 ts: Nal eer ‘Crile ion th onept the Bue Mme et pce ‘lng aaa econ, re meet (anneNotts 70 PAGES 200-05, a + On éeentreg” see Jaques Dei, La Sacre, ey fe” ‘Let i efor Pai Sel, eg en anf ‘Gin on he Sef Me Th Stet Cae, Re Malaya Dean BnlimoeJoon Hopline Ui Pe, 190) 2 Walnce Sever "Pe Er of Analogy" in The Ney Ag (9; epi (al New vers Vintage Hosa nd} p13 4) Musee Macho "nconenaee maja” a Sade, Panga ue or {st alae lan, Glenn Liss (Pre). Pater 19) 44 See Hanan Tren Merona, cap. 1. Sate. Jame fe Seis Alsincion bowen etama of “ung” ad meld fe” Mast: 5. Myint the men pti of penny ha ben mie y the oy by Raha Senne, The al fir Mest pie by Alf 8. Koopin 996 6 Benjmin "The Sree” min,