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Maria Cohut

Celestial Virgin and Tellurian Whore: Anthropomorphic Simulacra and the Problematisation of Eros in M.G. Lewis and Prosper Mérimée. Maria Cohut. SIMULACRUM: an image or representation of someone or something an unsatisfactory imitation or substitute. The Oxford Dictionaries Online.

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Maria Cohut

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  1. Celestial Virgin and Tellurian Whore: Anthropomorphic Simulacra and the Problematisation of Eros in M.G. Lewis and Prosper Mérimée Maria Cohut

  2. SIMULACRUM: • an image or representation of someone or something • an unsatisfactory imitation or substitute The Oxford Dictionaries Online

  3. CONCEPTUAL TRIANGLE: Artificial likeness Original figure Double of likeness

  4. Pygmalion and the Image (Galatea) Roman de la Rose Bodleian Library, Oxford French, 15th century

  5. Medieval theorists […] understood wonder (admiratio) as • cognitive, non-appropriative, perspectival, and particular. • Not merely a physiological response, wonder was a recognition • of the singularity and significance of the thing encountered. • [W]onder is induced by the beautiful, the horrible, and the • skillfully made, by the bizarre and rare, by that which challenges • or suddenly illuminates our expectations, by the range of • difference, even the order and regularity, found in the world. […] • [M]arveling and astonishment as reactions seem to be triggered • […] by […] events or phenomena in which ontological and moral • boundaries are crossed, confused, or erased. Caroline Walker Bynum, Wonder (pp 3, 21)

  6. [T]he effect of the uncanny can easily be achieved when one • undertakes to reinterpret some kind of lifeless thing as part of an • organic creature, especially in anthropomorphic terms, in a poetic • or fantastic way. • The unpleasant impression is well known that readily arises in • many people when they visit collections of wax figures, panopticons • and panoramas. In semi-darkness it is often especially difficult to • distinguish a life-size wax or similar figure from a human person. Ernst Jentsh, On the Psychology of the Uncanny (pp 224, 222)

  7. This for two years had been the • Object of his increasing wonder and • adoration. • Oh! If such a Creature existed, • and existed but for me! Were I • permitted to [...] press with my lips • the treasures of that snowy bosom! • Gracious God, should I then resist • the temptation? Sandro Botticelli, Madonna with Child (detail) M.G. Lewis, The Monk (pp 40, 41)

  8. [E]ven in its carnal beginnings courtly love had this in common with Mariolatry, that both Mary and the Lady were focal points of men's aspirations and desires. Julia Kristeva, Stabat Mater (pp 140) What was [Ambrosio’s] amazement at beholding the exact resemblance of his admired Madona [sic] [in Matilda]? The same exquisite proportion of features, the same profusion of golden hair, the same rosy lips, heavenly eyes, and majesty of countenance adorned Matilda. M.G. Lewis, The Monk (pp 81)

  9. It is only when Matilda discards submission that she, as the double • of the Madonna portrait, no longer satisfies. • When Matilda transgresses the boundary of ideal, feminine • behaviour and becomes masterful, she no longer doubles the • Madonna portrait and consequently no longer mirrors Ambrosio’s • Desires. Angela Wright, Disruptions of the Idealized Woman (pp 47) • Deliberately, Lewis compares [Antonia] to a statue, not of the Virgin • nor of a saint but of the pagan goddess of love. Kate Ferguson Ellis, The Contested Castle (pp 133)

  10. By dying, a beautiful Woman serves as the motive for the creation of an art work and as its object of representation. As a deanimated body, she can also become an art object or be compared with one. Elisabeth Bronfen, Over Her Dead Body (pp 71) Clemente Susini, Anatomical Venus (wax, human hair, pearls, rosewood) ca 1790, Florence

  11. A Virgin? Oh, dear me, no! I’d soon have • recognized it if it had been a Virgin. It’s an • idol, […] you can tell from the look of her. • She looks at you with those big white eyes • of hers… it’s as if she was staring at you. • You can’t look her in the eyes. • So we dug and dug, and gradually this • black hand appears, like a dead man’s • hand reaching up out of the ground. Prosper Mérimée, The Venus of Ille(pp 134, 133) • Both femininity and death inspire the fear of an ultimate • loss of control, of a disruption of boundaries between self and • Other, of a dissolution of an ordered and hierarchical world. Elisabeth Bronfen, Over Her Dead Body (pp 182)

  12. [T]here are two Venuses under my roof. One I found in • the ground like a truffle; the other, descended from the • skies, has just shared out her girdle among us. • My son, choose [...] the one whom you prefer. […] The • Roman Venus is black, the Catalan Venus is white. The • Roman is cold, the Catalan enflames everything that • approaches her. Prosper Mérimée, The Venus of Ille (pp 153)

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