French Literature Reviews - 2026
What a Scandal!
Other Literary Studies
Review on Acta Fabula: “When Art Makes a Scandal...” by Denis Vigneron
Marie DOLLÉ (ed.)
What a Scandal!
PUV (Presses Universitaires de Vincennes)
Series "Culture et Société"
November 2006
ISBN: 2-84292-189-5, SODIS Code: F504038
137x220 mm
256 pages
22.00 euros
Publisher's presentation:
The Gospel's verdict is unequivocal: “Woe to the one through whom scandals come.” Yet the disruption caused by a scandal is often accompanied by intense jubilation. What could be more entertaining to experience and to recount? Scandals are frequently associated with youth, whose insolence upends established frameworks. The history of literature, painting, music, and cinema is punctuated by events that, by provoking public anger and indignation, served as a wake-up call, signaling to audiences that a new era had begun.
Taboo subjects still exist today. But has it not become exceedingly difficult to cause a scandal, given how thoroughly scandal has been assimilated into the ordinary categories of aesthetics, and how diverse the rhetorics of integration have become?
This collection showcases a wide variety of scandalous episodes so famous they have sometimes passed into legend: the premieres of Hernani, The Rite of Spring, and Pelléas et Mélisande, or the first screenings of L'Âge d'or and Salò. It also invites reflection on the essence of a phenomenon whose collective impact frequently transcends the boundaries of aesthetics alone.
Volume Editor: Marie Dollé
Contributors: Serge Bismuth, Myriam Boucharenc, Claude Coste, Marie Dollé, Christian Doumet, Claudine Grammont, Pierre Jourde, Claude Leroy, Jeannine Richard-Zappella, Alain Schaffner, Agnès Spiquel, Jean Touzot, Francis Vanoye
Contents:
Marie DOLLÉ
Preface
THE SCANDAL: SCENARIOS AND LEGENDS
Agnès SPIQUEL
The Legend of the Battle of Hernani
Alain SCHAFFNER
Silhouettes of Scandal: From Marcel Aymé to Céline
Serge BISMUTH
The Scandal of the Signature: Manet and Mallarmé
Claudine GRAMMONT
The Avant-Garde as Strategy: The Example of the Fauvist Scandal
Jeannine RICHARD-ZAPPELLA
Karl Kraus, or Scandalous Utterances
IMAGES OF SCANDAL
Myriam BOUCHARENC
The Gratuitous Act: A Scandal in Three Quick Steps
Jean TOUZOT
Jean Cocteau, or Proof of Genius Through Scandal
Claude LEROY
The Carnival of Impostures: Romain Gary's Myth of Tahiti
Francis VANOYE
On Several Cinematic Scandals and the Question of the Unrepresentable
SCANDAL NOTES
Claude COSTE
The Pelléas et Mélisande Scandal
Marie DOLLÉ
A Tumultuous Premiere: Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring
CAN WE STILL CAUSE A SCANDAL TODAY?
Pierre JOURDE
Scandal, Censorship, and Trials in the Contemporary French Literary Field
Christian DOUMET
The Anesthetized Body of the Work
The study of scandal within the arts often intersects with the broader history of aesthetics and the sociology of culture. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, avant-garde movements frequently utilized provocation as a strategy to challenge established norms. This collection discusses specific historical events, such as the premieres of Hernani, The Rite of Spring, and Pelléas et Mélisande, which are noted for provoking public indignation and signaling shifts in artistic paradigms.
The volume considers the evolution of the scandalous act, questioning whether the phenomenon retains its disruptive potential in a contemporary context where transgression is often assimilated by cultural institutions. The essays discuss figures such as Manet, Cocteau, and Gary, and examine the relationship between the work of art and its audience. Readers interested in cultural history may find it relevant.