Armance (novel)
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 Title page for Armance (1877) | |
| Author | Stendhal (Henri Marie Beyle) |
|---|---|
| Original title | Armance |
| Language | French |
| Published | 1827 |
| Publication place | France |
Armance is a romance novel set during the Bourbon Restoration by French writer Stendhal, published anonymously in 1827.[1] It was Stendhal's first novel, though he had published essays and critical works on literature, art, and travel since 1815.
Octave de Malivert, a taciturn but brilliant young man barely out of the École Polytechnique, is attracted to Armance Zohiloff, who shares his feelings. The novel describes how a series of misunderstandings have kept the lovers Armance and Octave divided. A series of clues suggest that Octave is impotent as a result of a severe accident. Octave is experiencing a deep inner turmoil; he himself illustrates the pain of the century's romantics. When the pair do eventually marry, the slanders of a rival convince Octave that Armance had married only out of selfishness. Octave leaves to fight in Greece, and dies there of sorrow.[1]
Theme
Armance is based on the theme of Olivier, a novel by the Duchess Claire de Duras. In Olivier, the protagonist cannot marry the Comtesse de Nangis because of a secret. Although the secret is never explicitly revealed in the novel, it is generally understood to be impotence,[2] or more subtly, homosexuality. Impotence was sometimes used as a subterfuge for male homosexuality in early 19th-century French literature, since homosexuality was considered too salacious to be openly addressed at the time.[3][4]
