Abstract
At the age of twenty-five, Maupassant wrote A la feuille de rose, maison turque, a play that shows a truly pornographic character which appears to have eluded the critiques. The context of publication plays a crucial role in the reception of a pornographic work. However, the structure of a pornographic message may be rather irrelevant when compared to more "ordinary" counterparts. What is crucial though is how the said message is dealt with: taboos in Maupassant's writings are endowed with either thematic or linguistic characteristics. This may be evidence of an attempt by the naturalist school at applying its principe de réel to dramatic works. The pornographic art thus triggers a particular type of reader-response: the reader may experience arousal, shock, disgust or even laughter. As for the female reader, having been robbed of her voice by a text pervaded with masculine fantasies, her role will be limited to a voyeuristic one.
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Place-Verghnes, F. Maupassant Pornographe. Neophilologus 85, 501–517 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011836512694
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011836512694