The Anxiety of Dispossession: Jealousy in Nineteenth-century French Culture

Masha Belenky

Jan 2008 · Associated University Presse

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Bound up with the male prerogative of ownership, jealousy was assigned an explicitly public role in guarding a man's property and propriety." "This book considers portrayals of jealousy by major authors such as Balzac, Hugo, and Zola alongside a broad range of works by medical writers, journalists, and moralists who wrote for popular audiences." "Covering the years 1818 to 1898, the book shows how the subject of jealousy was used as a projection screen for social and cultural debates in the decades between the French Revolution's radical challenge to religious and political authority and the advent of psychoanalysis at the century's end." "By examining the many layers of meaning that underpan numerous and often dissonant representations of jealousy across a wide range of literary and historical texts, The Anxiety of Dispossession provides a new understanding of the society that made jealousy a central obsession."--BOOK JACKET.