Abstract

This dissertation advances an interpretation of Balzac's realism that would challenge the "copy theory" vs. "deconstructive theory" dichotomy that has shaped recent thinking on the issue. Through readings of Balzac's early "philosophical" novels, I argue that his realism should not be understood in terms of mimetic pictures of an external surface of reality , but as a cause-effect theory of human consciousness, which he derived analogically from the archaeological sciences. Not unlike Freud, Balzac theorized the existence of buried or repressed "ideas" which are planted in the mind early in life , and which function as an unconscious causal principle for subsequent, adult behaviors. Though the discursive voice of Balzac's narrators suggests this hidden level of consciousness, Balzac structures his narratives "archaeologically" so that readers must actively imagine and reconstruct this "other side" from the observable, surface-level events recounted. Balzac signals this dual-layered structure of consciousness to the reader by systematically encoding the products and behaviors of his "genius" characters' minds with archaeological metaphors. By making the "ruins" of these characters' fantasms the subject of a narrative mystery, Balzac actively encourages the reader to imagine the meaning of the lost totality. ;Based on this archaeological theory of interpretation, I show that these novels are not really about geniuses; they are a theoretical demonstration of the causes of madness. The various genius characters can be shown to collapse into madness because they are unable to renounce their principle of self-identity for conventional reality. More specifically, each of the psychological disasters can be traced back to an underlying historical and cultural causality: their self-identity is rooted in obsolete ideals associated with prerevolutionary France , but they attempt to maintain it in the modern, secular postrevolutionary context. The lost content of their intellectual and artistic pursuits is, at bottom, a displaced expression of their Christian/patriarchal dream--a dream that becomes structurally unrealizable by the revolutionary events that occur during their lifetime