The Love Affair as a Work of Art
by Dan Hofstadter
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Description
This series of entwined biographical sketches recounts how, in the Romantic Era, love affairs, often illicit, were transformed into novels, memoirs, and published correspondences. We make the intimate acquaintance of great writers like Mme de Stae?l, Chateaubriand, George Sand, and Anatole France, who, however, fall gradually under the suspicion of pursuing their amorous entanglements for "good material." The tale ends with a moving account, based on unpublished sources, of the strange, show more intense friendship of Marcel Proust and Jeanne Pouquet, the girl who became the model for Gilberte in Swann's show lessTags
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Author Information
9+ Works 349 Members
Dan Hofstadter is the author of five nonfiction books, including The Love Affair as a Work of Art and Falling Palace (a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir). He has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker and has taught at the University of Pennsylvania. Wesleyan University, and Bennington College. He lives in show more upstate New York. show less
Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- George Sand; Anatole France; Marcel Proust; Benjamin Constant
- Epigraph
- And then it seemed to him that they might have joys which should make life worth living. Their existence might be a work of art, beautiful and hidden. They would think, comprehend, and feel together. It would be a marvelou... (show all)s world of emotions and ideas.--The Red Lily
- Dedication
- FOR NANCY
- First words
- Benjamin Constant is one of those European writers who have never really made it over here, never been asked to join in the American jamboree.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)It is a revelation, very nearly the final one in this tradition, of the musicality of love.
- Blurbers
- Lord, James; Lukacs, John
Classifications
- Genres
- Literature Studies and Criticism, Fiction and Literature
- DDC/MDS
- 848.70809354 — Literature & rhetoric French Literature French miscellaneous writings Constitutional monarchy 1815–48
- LCC
- PQ147.5 .H64 — Language and Literature French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese literatures French literature General
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 67
- Popularity
- 465,636
- Rating
- (4.08)
- Languages
- English, German, Italian
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 10
- ASINs
- 1
