The libertine child:: Discoursive power and narrative desire in 'Lamiel' by Stendhal

Arguing for a reconsideration of Stendhal's unfinished novel, this article shows how Lamiel renders evident the tensions between eighteenth- and nineteenth-century narrative models and social contexts. Its unfinished state reveals multiple narrative voices - a first-person narrator, the character Sansfin, and Lamiel herself - attempting to gain discursive power over the fate and identity of the young female protagonist. The competition among these voices affects the construction of the novel itself (each time that a central character first Lamiel, then Sansfin - begins to direct and narrate the flow of events within the story, the author stops writing), but also demonstrates the links between libertinage and narrative desire. Working from an intertextual study of the relationship between Lamiel and its eighteenth-century libertine ancestors, the article argues that Stendhal depicts a Restoration society whose constraints render impossible the narrative thrusts he attempts.