Modern Language Studies

Alfred de Vigny's "Eloa": A Modern Myth

Author(s): Lucretia S. Gruber
Source: Modern Language Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring, 1976), pp. 74-82
Published by: Modern Language Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3194396 .
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 Alfredde Vigny'sEloa: A ModernMyth
Lucretia S. Gruber

One of the outstandingfeaturesof the Romantic era in France was

the re-evaluationof the feminine.It was widely assumed that man's capacity
for rational thoughtand scientificachievementneeded to be tempered by
woman's capacity forsentiment.Indeed, the beneficialinfluenceof woman's
love and compassion was considered a necessarypreconditionto moral de-
velopment,both for the individual and for all mankind. Woman thus had
redemptivequalities. Perhaps the purest expressionof this constellationof
ideas is to be found in the utopian religioussects of the period and in the
Romanticepic. Alfredde Vigny's Eloa (1824) may be read in this context.
Eloa is the firstof a series of angel women appearing in the Romantic epic.
She is followed by Rachel in Edgar Quinet's Ahasverus (1833), Semida in
AlexandreSoumet'sLa Divine EIpopee (1840), Marie in Alphonse Constant's
La Mere de Dieu (1844) and Liberte in Victor Hugo's La Fin de Satan
(fragmentswrittenin 1854 and 1859, published posthumouslyin 1886). The
missionof these quasi-divinefemalefiguresis to help put an end to evil.
As any reader of Vigny'spoem knows,Eloa descends fromheaven to
console and save Satan. It is suggestedthat if she had succeeded, evil might
have ceased to exist, but Vigny does not permit this to happen. Instead,
Satan seduces Eloa and causes her to fall with him to the depths of hell.
Despite the failureof Eloa's attempt,the fact remains that Vigny lays out
the essential elementsof what I call the mythof the angel woman and the
end of evil; he linkstogetherthe divine feminineprincipleand the redemp-
tion of humanity.This constitutesone of the major originalelementsof Eloa.
We tend not to focus on thisview of Eloa as a mythof the redeeming
feminineforseveral reasons. First,the centralportionof the poem is devoted
to Satan's seduction of Eloa, an activitywhich, for most of us, is anything
but celestial. Perhaps this explains Stendhal's sarcastic descriptionof Eloa
in the Courrier anglais of 1 December 1824: "l'ex-larme,devenue ange-
femelle,et seduite par le diable lui-meme"1(the ex-tear,turned into a fe-
male angel, and seduced by the devil himself). Flottes and Bonnefoyinsist
thatthe veryfinepsychologicalanalysisof the seductionmakes us see human
protagonistsin an angelic decor, which weakens any metaphysicalmeaning
Vigny mightattach to his poem.2 Germain,who had the benefitof Hunt's
masterlywork, The Epic in NinteenthCenturyFrance (1941), states flatly
that the drama of Eloa is not metaphysicalbut moral.3Benichou, however,
does remarkin Le Sacre de l'ecrivain1750-1830 (1973) that the creationof
Eloa correspondsto the theologicalpromotionof the feminineas an agent of
redemptionprominentin the religioussects of the Romanticperiod.4
The second reason we tend not to see Eloa in thislightis the empha-
sis scholars have placed on the Romantic rehabilitationof Satan. We have
not had adequate correspondingemphasis on the concomitantrehabilitation

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of woman, who had also been seen as the incarnationof evil. Thus we dis-
cuss the metaphysicalmeaning of the Satan or Satans in Eloa, summarized
by Milner in Le Diable dans la litteraturefrancaise (1960),5 while neglect-
ing to considerwith the same care the role of Eloa. Perhaps it is not without
significancethat Vigny tentativelycalled his poem Satan, but he finallyen-
titledit Eloa.
A possible third reason for not seeing Eloa as a prototypefor the
redeemingangel woman is that this idea was seeminglyeclipsed at the end
of the Romantic era, at least in its more virulentforms.For the reader not
familiarwith this particularaspect of Romanticism,a shortreview is in or-
der, althoughthe subject of woman's metamorphosisfromtemptressto savior
is obviouslynot withinthe scope of thisarticle.
Briefly,for the Romantics, woman came to be perceived as man's
necessary complement: his domain was thought; hers, feeling. Feminism
emerged as an essential componentof social thought,not usually a militant
feminismdemanding concrete economic or political action, but rather a
gentle feminismdemandingthat women be honouredfortheirspecial quali-
ties and allowed to exercise them forthe benefitof all mankind.Androgyny
became the ideal, not the sortproposed by our contemporaries,which makes
men and women virtuallyindistinguishablefrom one another, but an an-
drogynywhich envisionsthe union of male and female poles, the creationof
a new and whole being in the couple. Androgynywas, of course, a leitmotif
appearing in the beliefs of neo-Platonists,theosophists,illuminists,cabalists,
and Swedenborgiansboth before and afterthe French Revolution.Since the
splittingof mankindinto two sexes was believed to have been the resultof
the Fall, the reunion of the sexes in an androgynouswhole was linked to
humanity'seventual redemption.And, at the height of Romanticismin the
1830's and 1840's, utopian thinkersconsideredthat redemption,or the effec-
tive end of evil, was a realizable goal. However, woman's contribution,her
centuriesof expiatorysufferingand her ability to love, console, reconcile,
and forgive,was needed to effectthis redemption,as may be seen in the
beliefsof certainmagnetists,the Saint-Simonians,the Fourierists,the fusion-
ists and the followersof the Mapah. Thus, forexample, the Saint-Simonians,
already blessed by the coming of the Father in the person of their leader
Enfantin,declared 1833 the Year of the Mother and proceeded to wait for
her coming. This hope was disappointed, but nevertheless,the entire Ro-
mantic generationwas exposed to the concept of the couple as the new
individual,both in heaven and on earth,to the notion of the divine as both
masculine and feminine,and to the idea of woman as redeemer.6
It was natural forthese ideas to appear in the Romantic epic, whose
aim was to create a mythembodyingthe religiousaspirationsof the times.
What betterway to show the culminationof humanity'sspiritualand moral
developmentthan throughthe mythof the angel woman and the end of evil!
Eloa, relativelyunappreciated when firstpublished in 1824, gained a much
more enthusiasticreceptionwhen these ideas became prevalentseveral years
later. Both Charles Magnin in the Globe of 21 November 1829 and Gustave
Planche in the Revue des Deux Mondes of 1 August 1832 see in Eloa a myth
worthyof the epic.7

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 But what of Vigny? Surely his intentionswere metaphysicalrather
than moral. Like the otheryoungpoets of the Muse franQaise,two of whom,
Soumet and Hugo, went on to elaborate the same mythicmaterial,Vigny
saw himselfin the line of Dante and Milton. Baldenspergerpoints out this
note found at the bottomof a draftof Eloa: "Au milieu d'un recit effrayant
jeter comme le Dante . . . Sages de tous les pays qui m'ecoutez, c'est pour
vous que la veritebrille dans mes chants mysterieux."8(In the middle of a
frighteningstory,interjectlike Dante . . . Wise men everywherewho are
listeningto me, forfyouthe truthgleams in my mysterioussongs.) Between
1819 and 1825 Vigny attemptedto express his religiousthoughtin an im-
mensely ambitiouswork, a series of poems which he entitledMysteres.He
did not want to create a grandiosearchitecturalpoem, but intended instead
to group a numberof shortpoems which combined narrativewith spiritual
insight.Eloa, perfectin itself,is part of thisuncompletedproject.
The titleMystere,which Eloa carries,suggeststhat Vigny was trying
to create a modernmyth.It is possible, of course, that he was imitatingBy-
ron, for Cain (1821) translated into French in 1822 and Ciel et Terre
(1824) translatedin 1824 also carrythis title.However, the word "mystere"
has importantconnotations.Its ancientmeaningis a religiousdoctrinewhose
secretis onlycommunicatedto a select group of initiates,which fitswell with
the idea of the seer-poet,member of a long line of chosen visionaries.Eloa
is writtenin dramaticform,and thus resemblesmedieval mysteryplays in
which holy storieswere portrayed.It is interestingto note that the inhabi-
tants of heaven in Eloa "repetaientchaque nouveau Mystere/Qui,dans le
meme temps,se passait sur la Terre." (Poemes, p. 19) (rehearsed each new
Mystery/Which,at the same time, took place on Earth.) Perhaps Vigny
means to indicate that the Mystere of Eloa, although taking place in the
heavens, is not withoutrelationshipto the course of events on earth. Finally,
the Christianmeaning of "mystere"is an article of faiththe comprehension
of which goes beyond human reason. Again, this could correspondto the
inspiredvision of the poet, and bringsthe Mystereclose to our notion of a
myth,an essentiallyreligiousconcept embodied by necessityin artisticform,
because any rationalexpositionof it falls shortof its truth.
It seems quite clear, then, that Vigny intended Eloa to have meta-
physical significance.In his Journalof 20 May 1829, he commentson the
growing appreciation of Eloa, explaining that this simply proves he was
ahead of his time,and he goes on to give what is almost a definitionof the
creationof a modem myth:"Concevoiret mediterune pensee philosophique;
trouverdans les actionshumainescelle qui en est la plus evidentepreuve; la
reduirea une action simplequi puisse graveren la memoireet representeren
quelque sorte une statue et un monument grandiose a l'imagination des
hommes,voila ou doit tendre cette poesie epique et dramatique a la fois. Je
cherchaisdepuis 1817 un sujet modernequi futaussi beau, aussi calme dans
ses formesque les sujets antiques: je ne l'ai pas trouve . . . Eloa seule me
semble pouvoir y etre assimilee."9 (To conceive and meditate on a philo-
sophical thought;to findin human actions the one that is its most obvious
proof; to reduce it to a simple action which can engrave itselfin memory
and, in some way, representto the imagination of men a statue and a

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grandiose monument,that is the directionthis poetry,both epic and dra-
matic,musttake. Since 1817 I had looked fora modem subject which was as
beautiful,as calm in its formas the subjects of antiquity:I didn't findit ...
only Eloa seems to me to fitthis description.) In 1829, when the redeeming
qualities of woman were gaining currencyin the general mentality,Vigny
writes about Eloa: "C'est une creation; l'ange femme n'existaitpas, et le
dictionnairepoetique de l'ouvrage est puise, non dans des chroniques,non
dans le langage d'une nation,mais dans des termesnouveaux,caracteresneufs
que j'ai fondus expres pour cette imprimerie" (Journal, O.C. II, 891).
(She is a real creation; the angel woman didn't exist,and the poetic lexicon
of the workis to be found,not in chronicles,not in the language of a nation,
but in new terms,new charactersthat I have struckexpresslyforthis print-
ing.)
It is the creation of Eloa, an angel woman whose missionis to con-
sole and save Satan, of which Vigny is most proud. This does not mean, as
Germain suggests,that because he inventedher, he does not believe in her
(Germain,p. 74). But instead of using the mythof Antigoneor the storyof
Joan of Arc, which also appear in the Romantic epic, Vigny has created his
own myth,which was indeed originalat the time and which came to reflect
the profoundaspirationsof the Romanticworld of 1830-1848.
The originalityof Eloa is, of course,not absolute. Obviously,the poet
owes a greatdeal to Dante and Milton,Byronand Moore. And in the Messi-
ade by Klopstock, praised by Mme de Stael and by Soumet in the Muse
franfaiseof December 1823, thereis an episode, translatedby Soumet in the
Annales romantiquesof 1823, in which Abbadona, a repentantdevil, is finally
pardoned because he has kept his love of virtueand suffersfromthe absence
of his brotherangel. In this same epic there is an angel named Eloa. But if
Vigny takes fromKlopstock a name and the idea of a devil saved through
love, Eloa is stillone of the most originalworksof the Romantic generation.
Afterall, a masculine angel could have extended a fraternalhand to Satan.
Female figureshad previouslysacrificedand, in a sense, redeemed, for ex-
ample, Velleda in Chateaubriand's The Martyrs (1809) and Antigone in
Ballanche's 1814 epic of thatname. But forthe firsttimein French literature,
at least so faras Vignywas aware, the poet created an angel woman.
In fact, thereis a certainlogic in the concept of a female redeemer.
Since it was an earthlywoman, Eve, who caused the-Fall,perhaps by simple
symmetryit should be a celestial woman who repairs that fault. Moreover,
what Vigny suggests,by hintingat the possibilityof Satan's reintegration
with heaven, is a metamorphosisof the human condition, and as Fabre
d'Olivet remarksin a letteraddressed to Byronas a prefaceto his 1823 trans-
lation of Cain, it is always woman who presides over man's metamorphosis.
Nevertheless,the invention of a female angel flies in the face of
Christiantradition,in which the femininewas generallydenigrated or ig-
nored, and in which angels were portrayedas either neutral or masculine.
Madame de Stael commentedon the absence of female angels in literature
in De l'Allemagne,and she ascribed it to the greaterbeauty of the union of
masculine forcewith purity,as opposed to that of a union composed of pu-
rityand femininemodesty (Germain, p. 148). Perhaps Vigny saw this pas-

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sage and was struckand challenged by it. It is possible also that the vogue
of orientalreligiongave the example of a divine world not quite so andro-
centricas that of Christianity.In a footnoteto the 1822 versionof his poem
Helena, VignyexplainsthatLa Peri is a femaleangel mentionedin the Koran
(Poemes, 286). He was thus quite aware of the existenceof female angels in
othertheologies.But Vigny'svisionof heaven in Eloa, a heaven inhabitedby
both masculine and feminineangels united as celestial couples, was quite
unlike the traditionalChristianvision. And the creation of Eloa, pity incar-
nate in a female angel who attemptsto save Satan and thus put an end to
evil, was both originaland heretical.
Let us examine the role of Eloa in Vigny's short epic. Her storyis
dividedin threeparts,Naissance,Seductionand Chute (Birth,Seduction
and Fall). In the firstpart of this triptych,her essence is defined as both
divine and feminine.Born of a tear shed by Christ at the death of Lazarus
and animated by the gaze of God, she symbolizespity for the human con-
dition,and her double origin,both earthlyand divine, suggests a mediating
function.According to Chateaubriand in the Ge'nie du Christianisme,the
name Eloa means the chosen one (Milner I, p. 309). The notion of a divine
missionis reinforcedin the poem, as Vigny calls her "la Vierge Eloa" (the
VirginEloa), remindingus of the Virgin Mary, and "la fillede Dieu" (the
daughterof God) thus suggestingthat she may be the Son of God's female
counterpart,herselfa redeemer.At her birthshe does indeed seem a divine
figure,twice compared to the moon (p. 16), which in many mythologies
representsthe divine feminineprinciple.When she begins her descent from
heaven, she has a strongconsolingunifyingeffecton the worlds she passes
(p. 21), which again suggests a femininequality magnifiedto a divine
power.
Vigny takes care to establishher identityas an angel woman by en-
dowing her with an almost sensual voluptuousness.He describes her white
foot appearing and disappearingbeneath her flowingskirtsand her agitated
breastsrisingand fallingbeneath the contoursof her heavenlyrobe (p. 13).
It is then that the poet affirms, contraryto the normal gender of the word
"ange," "C'est une femmeaussi, c'est une Ange charmante" (italics mine),
(p. 13). Such voluptuousnessin an angel may seem shocking,but it is part
and parcel of the Romantic deificationof all aspects of femininity.An ex-
treme example of this tendency is the Saint-Simonianbelief that woman
could use her sexualityto console and thus serve mankind,but an attenuated
versionof the same idea may be foundin many a Romanticnovel.
Eloa is also essentiallyfemininebecause she lacks complete self-real-
izationuntilshe findsher masculinecounterpart.Immediatelyafterher birth,
she advances, but toward what or whom? She very much resemblesa bride
marchingdown the aisle to meet her groom.She is "toute paree" (p. 13), an
adjective oftenused to describe the bride in her finery.Like a bride, she is
wearing a veil (which she will finallyliftfor Satan), and she goes forward
"comme une epouse au temple" (like a wife in the temple) (p. 13). The
denizens of heaven look on, much like wedding guestslook at the advancing
bride, and Eloa is surroundedby a cortege of Virgins,reminiscentof maids
of honour,who strewflowersin her path.

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 The full title of Vigny's epic is Eloa ou la Soeur des anges (Eloa or
the Sisterof the Angels). Perhaps calling her the sisterof the angels serves to
indicate not only her relationshipto the angels, but also her differencefrom
them,since she has both earthlyand celestial origins.However, in his poem
Vignycharacterizesfemale angels as sisterscreated by God forthe happiness
of male angels (p. 16). Perhaps Eloa is destined for one of them. By her
luminosity,she may be the femininecomplement to Lucifer, and indeed,
when she hears of his exile, her firstreaction is not to recoil in horror,but
to pityhim (p. 16).
So the drama begins for Eloa. Even the way in which she decides
to descend to help Satan is essentiallyfeminine.She passes througha period
of immobility,of solitaryreverie.When asked why she doesn't seek a com-
panion among the angels, she replies: "Aucun d'eux n'a besoin de celle qui
console. / On dit qu'il en est un . . " (None of them need her who con-
soles. / They say thereis one . . .) (p. 18). Finally, Eloa smiles and begins
her descent. She has accomplished an interiormetamorphosiswhich resem-
bles the gestationof a child. Indeed, Vigny compares Eloa leaving heaven
to a bird which has brokenthroughthe shell of its sun-ripenedegg (p. 18).
This femininemetamorphosiscorrespondsto her psychic birth,her recogni-
tion thather completeidentitylies in her missionto console Satan.
It is astoundingthat a critic as astute as Germain can question the
femininityof Eloa and accuse Vigny of creating a sort of transvestite.He
does this because Eloa is compared once to a hunteras she spies Satan and
anothertime to a god, when Satan is flattering her. While these comparisons
may not be the most felicitouspossible, it is my judgment that they arise
because of the quasi-divinepower of the angel ratherthan any confusionon
Vigny'spart as to sexual identityof his heroine.
Eloa, thus firmlyestablished as both feminineand divine, fails ut-
terlyin her mission of consolation and redemption,for Satan succeeds in
seducing her. Some criticsare disconcertedby the beautifullyorchestrated
scene of seductionwhich constitutesthe second part of Eloa. They see two
Satans: one Byronic,nobly proclaiminghis freedom in the face of God's
tyranny,suggestingthat the fault lies with God, not with him; the other
traditional,attemptingto convertall innocence to evil. I am not sure that the
contradictionexistson any level otherthan an intellectualone. Satan's sin is
thatof thoughtbeyond and outside of faith (p. 36). As a consequence of this
Byronicrevolt,he is mired in evil. He has inventedvoluptuousnessto com-
pensate forthe miseryhe thus shares with mankind. But why seduce Eloa?
Perhaps this crimeis not the work of the traditionalSatan, but the only way
a being so penetrated by evil can express love. Vigny was a young man
when he wroteEloa. Sometimesour most disinterestedand noble attemptsto
love and be loved can seeminglyinvoluntarily turninto the most ignominious
seduction of the other. The complexityof Satan seems to me to reflect
Vigny's pessimisticview of the human condition,the impossibilityof ever
escaping completelythe clay of which we are made.
Dramatic tension is provided in the poem because Satan is, in fact,
attractedby Eloa's shininginnocence. He vacillates between the temptation
to love her and despair at his own distance fromsuch purity.They reach a

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point of equilibriumat which Satan's heart findsa momentof respite from
crime (p. 36). Satan "presque charme" (almost charmed) is balanced by
Eloa "presque soumise" (almost submissive). But with supreme irony,the
sight of Satan's real and terriblesufferingas he measures the distance be-
tween himselfand heaven overwhelmsall Eloa's thoughtsof consolation,and
she wants only to flee. If at that momentshe had dared to extend her hand
to Satan: "Qui salt? le mal peut-etreeut cesse d'exister" (p. 36). (Who
knows? Perhaps evil would have ceased to exist). But at her movementof
recoil, Satan takes up his calculated manipulation of Eloa with renewed
vigor, determinednot to lose her. The ironyis continued as words echoing
in the heavens glorifying decide Eloa to descend with Satan. As
self-sacrifice
they fall, Satan tells her that in her misguided effortsto console and save
him, she has committeda crime.
The end of Eloa is thus very somber.Vigny seems to be saying that,
as in his draftof a Dernier Jugement(1819) in which love could not con-
quer evil, pity and innocence cannot either. However, there is some slight
ambiguity,because the finalsummationis that of Satan, not of the poet. Fur-
thermore,Vigny emphasizes that during the seduction of Eloa she blushes
three times and she lowers her eyes three times, thus signifyingthat her
seductionis complete. But just beforeher fall with Satan, she raises her eyes
only two times toward heaven, suggestingthat perhaps Eloa's fall is not
irreversible.
There is evidence thatVignyconsideredanotherfateforEloa. Among
the notes leftby Vigny dating back to the time of the compositionof Eloa
are some verses depictingthe redemptionof Satan. WhetherVigny intended
these verses to be part of Eloa or a sequel to it (Milner I, 377-378), the fact
remainsthat a fragmentexistsin which Satan approaches Eloa in hell, but
findshe cannot touch her. It is as if she is enclosed in a house of glass. Her
purity thus preserved,immobile, Eloa begins to accomplish the feminine
work of metamorphosis.Her luminosityincreasinglyfillsthe deep night of
hell. As she weeps for the sufferersaround her, little by little their despair
is lessened. Finally Eloa smiles, as she smiled, we will recall, when she
reached her decision to descend in search of Satan in Eloa. The metamorpho-
sis complete, Satan becomes Lucifer once more, and as he entersheaven a
voice intones: "Tu as ete puni pendant le temps; tu as assez souffert, puisque
tu fus l'ange du mal. Tu as aime une fois: entre dans mon eternite.Le mal
n'existeplus" (Poemes, p. 327). (You were punished duringtime; you have
sufferedenough,since you were the angel of evil. You loved once: enterinto
my eternity.Evil no longerexists.)
This version was, of course, never published. In a letter to Emile
Deschamps of 9 September 1823, the poet says that he darkened the end of
Eloa to avoid excommunication(Germain,p. 345). Althoughhe avoided the
heresy of the end of evil, as Benichou points out, he replaced this heresy
with another,that of God's absolute indifference(B6nichou, p. 374). It is
probable that Vigny's ingrained pessimismplayed no small role in his re-
luctance to publish so wildlyhopefulan ending to Eloa's venture.
Yet the idea of the consoling,redeemingpower of the femininehad a
powerfulattractionforVigny. Eva, the companionof the poet, who appears

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in his later work is a sisterof Eloa. And the figureof Eloa herselfappears
repeatedlyin Vigny'sJournal.In an entryof 14 November 1830 she is seen
as a sort of Saint-Simoniangoddess who pities the Slave, the Serf and the
Salaried, which indicates that Vigny himselfsaw a connectionbetween his
Eloa and the consoling feminineprinciple revered by the Saint-Simonians.
Eloa appears again in 1834 as she did in the firstsketches: "L'Etemite des
peines detruitepar un regard de Dieu sur Eloa, l'ange de la pitie" (Journal,
O.C. II, 1010). (The eternityof punishmentdestroyedby God's gaze resting
on Eloa, the angel of pity.) In 1837, she is seen excusingthe crimesof those
imprisonedin hell, and as she does, darknessbecomes light, and Satan be-
comes Lucifer once more (Journal,O.C. II, 1013). The Eloa of an 1838
Journalentryoffersyet another sort of reconciliationand relief when she
asks Satan to abandon his pretentionto independentthoughtand lose him-
self with her in the sacred heart of Jesus (Journal,O.C. II, 1108-09). In a
project for a dramatic poem, the Nouveau purgatoire (New Purgatory),
which Flottes dates at 1850 (Flottes, p. 317), Eloa accompanies each newly
absolved soul to the gates of heaven. Eloa appears in Vigny'sJournalforthe
last time in 1859, twenty-sixyears afterthe compositionof Eloa. There she
is the counterbalanceof Lilith, dark angel woman whose jealousy at Adam's
marriageto Eve causes her to give over to sufferingand death all mankind
(Journal,O.C. II, 1343).
In each ofthese cases, the Eloa who emergesanew forVignyis not the
defeated victimof the end of Eloa, but the personificationof all-redeeming
pity. Eloa is not just a prettyliteraryinvention,she representsa profoundly
felt spiritualaspirationon the part of the poet, the stuffof which mythsare
made. Despite the fact that this vision of Eloa was obscured at the end of
Vigny's published epic, the grand outline of the mythof the angel woman
and the end of evil was therefor all to see, and forVigny'smore optimistic
fellow poets to use. It seems fair to assume, moreover,that through his
friendshipwith Vigny,Hugo, who closed the cycle of epics dealing with this
myth with the angel woman Liberte in the Fin de Satan was aware of
Vigny'sprivateEloa.
Many twentiethcenturyreaders have not delved deeply enough into
the ideas of utopian social thinkersof the Romanticera in France to perceive
the special missionreservedforwoman. Many have not read Ahasverus,La
Divine epopee, La Mere de Dieu and La Fin de Satan. And so we read
Eloa withoutseeing in it the tentativeelucidation of a modern myth.Eloa
cannot be dismissed as a moralityplay, a sortof boudoir storyin an angelic
decor, no more than Eloa's reappearance as Quinet's Rachel, Soumet's Se-
mida, Constant's Mary or Hugo's Liberte can be dismissed as some sort of
Romantic quirk, or a bow to the feminismof the period on the part of the
author.
There is in Alfredde Vigny's Eloa, and in the epics which follow it,
a mythof the angel woman and the end of evil, which illustratesa dimly
perceived but profoundlyfelt connection between the rehabilitationof
woman and that of Satan. In a very large sense, their re-integrationrepre-
sents a rejection of evil without,evil in the devil and evil in woman, and
an acceptance of the totalityof human realitysuggested by the Romantic

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ideal of the couple as the new individual. This acceptance of all that is
human implies a reverence for the female principle equal to that which
Western culture has had for the male. It implies a departure from the
androcentrismof the divine. Moreover,the acceptance of the female prin-
ciple and its new alliance with the male should bring about a beneficial
change in the human condition.
This hope is presentin Eloa, as it is also in the tenetsof various reli-
gious sects. Thus Vigny sensed the tendenciesof his generationand Eloa is
theirmythicrepresentation.
One has only to thinkof Rousseau's La Nouvelle Heloise to see that
the mythof the redeemingangel woman is not a purelynineteenthcentury
phenomenon.I should like to suggest,moreover,that the mythfirstclearly
delineated in Eloa is not yet dead. It may be seen in Jung'scall forless mas-
culine-centeredreligion,in women's attemptsto enterthe priesthoodand in
countless other phenomena. The end of evil may not mean for us what it
meant forthe Romantics,but it could be construedto mean the end of the
evil produced by our almosttotal reliance on the masculinevalue of rational,
scientific,and abstractthought.More and more we realize that if we are to
surviveon the planet Earth, we need the influenceof the femininevalue of
loving care-taking.Is this Eloa breakingout of the heavens to redeem Satan
isolated in his independent thought?We will never know whether Vigny
would have thoughtso, but the very suggestionis indicative of the vitality
of the modem myththe poet created when he "invented"Eloa.
TuftsUniversity

FOOTNOTES
1. Stendhalin GeorgesBonnefoy, La Penseereligieuseet moraled'Alfredde Vigny
(Paris: Hachette,1946), p. 37.
2. GeorgesBonnefoy,op. cit., p. 38 and PierreFlottes,La Pensee politiqueet
sociale d'Alfredde Vigny (Strasbourg:Commissiondes Publicationsde la
Facultedes Lettresde l'Universite,1926), p. 38.
3. FrangoisGermain,L'Imaginationd'Alfredde Vigny(Paris: Corti,1961), pp.
73-74.
4. Paul Benichou,Le Sacre de l'ecrivain1750-1830 (Paris: JoseCorti,1973), p.
373.
5. Max Milner,Le Diable dans la litterature Vol. 1 (Paris: Corti,1960),
francaise,
pp. 373-376.
6. See AugusteViatte,VictorHugo et les illumines(Montreal:Les Fditionsde
l'Aube,1942).
7. S. HarveyClarke,The Worksof VignyJudgedby His Contemporaries (Tou-
louse: Imprimeriedu Sud-Est,1932), pp. 123, 125-6.
8. Alfredde Vigny,Poemes,ed. M. F. Baldensperger(Paris: Conard,1914), p.
315. All futurereferencesto thisworkwillbe placed in the textin parentheses.
9. Alfredde Vigny,Le Journald'un poete: Oeuvres completesII, ed. M. F.
Baldensperger(Paris: Gallimard,1948), p. 891. All futurereferences to this
workwillbe placed in thetextin parentheses.

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