Coiffures: Hair in Nineteenth-century French Literature and Culture

Carol de Dobay Rifelj

јан. 2010 г. · University of Delaware Press

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Balzac claimed that toilettes were the expression of society. Coiffures describes the historical and cultural practices associated with women's hairstyles, hair care, and hair art in nineteenth-century France. Hair also has profound symbolic significance. Lying on the border between life and death, it grows, but does not feel. It can be shaped and altered in manifold ways; it marks sexual identity; it can be wild and erotic or made docile by hairdressing. Literary works are inevitably informed by social and cultural practices and those of this period make extensive use of the meanings of hair, Coiffures shows how a wide range of literary works incorporate its manifold aspects, and it examines particular texts in detail, including novels by Balzac, Sand, Flaubert, Zola, Gautier, Maupassant, and Rodenbach. --