Stendhal's Exemplary Stories

Stendhal's first narrative texts are the short stories with which he punctuates his non-literary works. These short stories are presented as examples but seem to be examples that miss the point they were supposed to exemplify. There seems to be a discrepancy in these "exemplary stories" between their purported exemplary function (their aim or end) and their development as stories. Something similar can be said about Stendhal's novels and novellas. An analysis of the disfunctioning of examples in two exemplary stories (that of Bianca Capello and that of Stradella) allows us to better understand some of the main features of Stendhal's narrative. (MPG)