The Secret Self: A Reading of Musset’s André del Sarto

The prose drama André del Sarto occupies a transitional position within Musset’s dramatic œuvre, crowning the œuvres de jeunesse while announcing the masterpieces of 1833 and 1834. Situating the play within the larger romantic trends of the Restoration, the article focuses on the impulses which inform the hero’s actions throughout the play and which finally bring him to suicide. Drawing on the theoretical work of Bataille, Girard and psychoanalyst Andras Zempléni, the essay illuminates the hero’s romantic obsession with his image of the world and with his self-image, an obsession shared by Musset throughout his own life and career. (SM)