THE INVISIBLE COLLEGE: Honoré de Balzac's Père Goriot and Sarrasine

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Welcome back to The Invisible College, my series of literature courses for paid subscribers. The introduction to and schedule for the 2026 season is here. The 2024 and 2025 archives are here. This episode, of which the first 10 minutes are free, is about Honoré de Balzac’s most famous novel, Père Goriot, exemplary of his pioneering realist style, and his novella Sarrasine, exemplary of his more decadent tale-telling vein. We first consider the eccentric and prodigious Balzac’s life and times and his ambition to write a Human Comedy. Then we explore Père Goriot’s portrayal of the modern city as labyrinth, its conflicts between the rival quests for love and power, its interest in crime and cynicism and cruelty, and its contest between realistic-scientific and allegorical-religious modes of literary representation. Next we turn to Sarrasine’s sensationalist tale of an sculptor in erotic pursuit of an ideally beautiful singer who isn’t what she seems. Finally, we dwell on the commentary Sarrasine occasioned by Roland Barthes, for whom it exemplified the ruse of Balzacian realism, and Camille Paglia, for whom it demonstrated Balzac’s commitment to androgyny and artistic production rather than the gender binary and sexual reproduction, Please like, share, comment, and subscribe! The slideshow corresponding to the episode can be downloaded behind the paywall: