Aleksandra Wojda

The article constitutes the second part of a study focused on operatic fragments in G. Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and M. Kuncewiczowa’s Cudzoziemka [The Foreigner]. In the first part, published in the Cahiers ERTA no 9, a comparative analysis of the functions fulfilled in both novels by the operatic scenes (Donizetti’s Lucie de Lammermoor and Puccini’s Madamy Butterfly) was proposed. The second part develops the issue of the socio‐political and aesthetical implications of the invoked scenes, as well as other components of both narratives that can be defined as musical. The conducted analysis reveals that both heroines’ distinct attitudes towards music reflect their fundamentally distinct attitudes towards any otherness, formed in two very different socio‐cultural contexts. The effect of this distinctiveness is originality of the two musical literary projects: the first – proposed by Flaubert – is a specific attempt at transgressing the artistic inertia that subdues Madame Bovary; the second – proposed by Kuncewiczowa – criticizes the absolutization of art at the hands of Róża, the foreigner, in the name of the unobtainable idea of perfection.

This paper forms the first part of a comparative study which centres on the fragments of Flaubert’s and Kuncewiczowa’s novels which refer to opera performances (Donizetti’s Lucie de Lammermoor and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly). In the first part of the study published here, a comparative analy-sis of the function of the quoted opera scenes in both novels was attempted. The conclusion is that these scenes should be treated not necessarily as mirrors in which the characters want to recognise themselves, but rather as specific synecdoches of « Bovarism », revealing its characteristics and the transgressive dimension. The second part of the study (Cahiers ERTA, no 10) will discuss the socio-political dimension of the quoted scenes, whilst their location within the context of other references to music, present in both novels, as well as of the aesthetic views of both writers will allow to dis-cover some characteristics of their projects of musical novels.