![]() ![]() ![]() They are often highly sophisticated and modern in their presentation of individual desires and behavior, yet they never venture far from an extrovert's enthusiasm for melodrama. His two masterpieces, Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme, along with several of his other works and fragments ( Lucien Leuwen, his life of Rossini, his treatise on love), combine psychological intimacy with a thrilling cosmopolitanism. In his greatest novels Stendhal dashes forward like a hussar, which Auden said only poets do he is as direct and blunt in style as a gentleman is in conversation. Swagger is the boasting of a man who, though he may exaggerate, has plenty to boast about. Most important, it implies an element of mild absurdity, even though-as distinct from "bluster," say-it reluctantly admits that the confidence has some solid basis. "Swagger" suggests confident worldliness it suggests magnificence and opulence it might be applied to people who, though perhaps not amiable, command a certain respect. Stendhal had an extraordinary degree of swagger-a word so completely appropriate to him that it's worth unpacking what, exactly, it means. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |