Blushes and humiliations in post-revolutionary France. A survey

Abstract

After Rousseau, French literature shows the transition from an impersonal conception of shame as dishonor to a more individual conception, focused on self-awareness. This contribution proposes a survey of nineteenth-century French fiction, based on the conditions and factors that generate self- shame in the fictional characters of some authors, including Claire de Duras, Stendhal, Sand and Barbey. Shame can be related to the body, sexuality and gender (impotence, homo- and bisexuality) and / or racial and social prejudices, which affect both the dominant and the dominated, according to the continuous changes of the post-revolutionary context. From this point of view, the fiction of the early nineteenth century already contains elements that will be developed in contemporary autosociobiography.