Georges du Roy’s Divorce in Guy de Maupassant Novel Bel-Ami in the Context of French Divorce Legislation Changes in the Second Half of the 19th Century Cover Image

Rozwód Georges’a du Roy w Bel-Ami Guy de Maupassanta w kontekście zmian we francuskim ustawodawstwie rozwodowym drugiej połowy XIX wieku
Georges du Roy’s Divorce in Guy de Maupassant Novel Bel-Ami in the Context of French Divorce Legislation Changes in the Second Half of the 19th Century

Author(s): Alicja Bańczyk
Subject(s): French Literature, 19th Century, Theory of Literature, Sociology of Law
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: Bel-Ami; Guy de Maupassant; law and literature; divorce in literature;

Summary/Abstract: Fitting into the current law and literature movement, the article focuses on the literary depiction of changes within divorce proceedings in nineteenth-century France based on Guy de Maupassant’s novel Bel-Ami. Written in 1885, the book depicts, in a highly realistic manner, fault-based divorce proceedings at the time of its creation. In the introduction, I briefly touch upon the evolution of the French divorce proceedings throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and its final outcome: the legalisation of a dissolution of marriage in 1884. The article attempts to answer the question how that revolutionary change of the divorce law influenced the novel’s content and how Guy de Maupassant depicted the dissolution of marriage in his work, and to verify if this depiction reflects legal reality.

  • Issue Year: 16/2021
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 197-210
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Polish