The Difficult Guest: French Queer Theory Makes Room for Rachilde
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Predominantly anglophone in its origins, queer theory has readily lent itself to potent new readings of some of French literature's most celebrated works. Initially, one might be led to believe that the novels of Rachilde, France's only recognized female writer of the decadent period, would be among those especially conducive to queer critique. The scandalous Monsieur Vénus (1884), however, merits more careful investigation: on one hand, its unflinching representations of non-normative sexual behavior (gender play, sadomasochism) is suggestive of queer readability. On the other hand, the novel may as easily be interpreted as a thinly-veiled defense of conservative sexual politics, in which gender is essentialized and unbending.
This article seeks to reconcile this seeming paradox and argue for Rachilde's inclusion in the unofficial canon of queer French fiction. First, it works to expose the elements of Monsieur Vénus that appear to glorify traditional notions of sexual fixity and heteronormativity. Then, it will reveal the ways in which those arguments are diluted and occasionally contradicted by Rachilde's precocious reckoning of debates and developments that have defined queer theory's critical trajectory over the last decade.
While queer theory relentlessly reinvents itself in pace with the changes in postmodern theoretical discourse, it also encourages its literary practitioners to find as yet unmined potential in the treasures of past works. Long since liberated from the rigid critical parameters of "authorial intent," scholars may now apply queer theory to a canon pre-dating not only the popularization of "queerness" (as a political and philosophical construct), but even of the open discussion of homosexuality in mainstream discourse. When conferences a few years ago first began to propose sessions on the intersection of French studies and queer theory, I initially daydreamed about a chic and anachronistic gathering at the close of the day's panels in appreciation of queer theory's unwitting pioneers, inviting for drinks all of French literature's past voices whose writings have lent themselves so aptly to the development of a new form of textual criticism now known as the queer reading. Academics would meet at the cash bar to offer their thanks and to chat with such luminaries as Renée Vivien and Marcel Proust. In this scenario, the writers upon whose texts modern-day literary scholars have made a living would surely suffer some confusion about how their works have come to be embraced by "queer theorists," but they would undoubtedly sense the crowd's ardor for their work as well. One troublemaker at this imaginary party would most certainly be Marguerite Eymery Vallette a.k.a. Rachilde, both famous and infamous for her novels, plays, and poetry at the turn of the century. She would be unwilling to good-naturedly take her place in the pantheon of Writers Now Queered, appalled by the pluralist, anti-essentialist rhetoric espoused by her admirers and, more significantly, occasionally applied to her texts. The fantasy, as it played out in my mind, was equally unpleasant were she to wander into the Gay and Lesbian Studies caucus a few doors down the hall; more on that assumption to follow.
Having made a name in fin-de-siècle Parisian literary circles as "Mademoiselle Baudelaire," Rachilde preferred to write outside the clearly-demarcated boundaries of social propriety. Her fiction enthusiastically embraced the non-traditional, the outlandish, and often the profane. An [End Page 113] immediate succès de scandale, her novel Monsieur Vénus (1884) provided exactly the kind of controversy that Rachilde craved, and secured her reputation as France's only recognized female writer of the decadent period. The novel's protagonist, Mademoiselle Raoule de Vénérande, is the very embodiment of Rachilde's love of the marginal—her strangeness and fervent disdain for conformity make her at once aversive and bewitching.1
What is especially engaging about Monsieur Vénus is the ease with which its readers of today might jump to one of two entirely opposite conclusions. One reading points to its racy descriptions of sexual eccentricity (seductive gender role ambiguity, references to sadomasochism) as evidence of queer readability...
