Henri Benjamin Constant de Rebecque, Cécile

Ian Morrison (Independent Scholar - Europe)

Ed. by Jennifer Yee, University of Oxford
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.05: French Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth-Century , 1800-1900.
Vol. editors: Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Nigel Harkness (University of Newcastle upon Tyne), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield), Jennifer Yee (University of Oxford)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1830

Places

France (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Cécile is a first-person narrative which Constant left unfinished, and which was not published until 1951. Why he did not complete his project is unclear. He had certainly meant Cécile for the public – not simply for himself or his acquaintances – as witness the explanations offered to readers, e. g. about the narrator’s religious sentiments (Roulin: 173). Constant may have written most of the text between 1809 and 1811, but it probably derives in part, like his major novel Adolphe, from a draft begun in 1806. Cécile and Adolphe certainly seem to arise from the same phase in his life (Roulin: 1436-1438; Wood: 191-192). Parallels with his private …

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1623 words

Citation: Morrison, Ian. "Cécile". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 December 2021 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6148, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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