PARIS IN THE FRENCH LITERATURE OF ROMANTICISM <br>The case of the novel <em>Père Goriot</em> by Balzac

Abstract

The Bible already provides dual image of the city, influencing the whole world literature which alternates those images through the centuries. On the one hand, the place of all the debauchery of all corruptions in the image of Sodom and Gomorrah, Babel and Babylon and on the other, heavenly Jerusalem, the meeting place of the man and his god. The eighteenth century reflects this duality and develops it into a conflict between the city and countryside, between civilization and rusticity, or between the place of corruption and place of purity and sincerity. The French Romantics, while rejecting the city and its ugliness, opposing it to the beauty of nature, remain fascinated by its strength and vital force and develop the theme of urban modernity through recurring evocations of Paris. The position held by the city in a social discourse of one period and the way in which literature reflects it, offer the opportunity to mark the relationship to the city as a feature of one aesthetic and of one literary movement. The famous novel Père Goriot from 1835 is a  typical example.