The founding curse: the Cain myth and its avatars in nineteenth century French poetry

Cain as a myth in French literature has been summarized by Philippe Sellier's article in the listing for Cain in his dictionary of literary myths, published in the March 1986 Canadian Review of Comparative Literature. Ricardo Quinones's book The Changes of Cain summarizes the various turns the Cain figure has taken in various literatures and includes a few remarks about the Cain myth in modern French literature. While there are many articles (and at least one entire book) on the Cain myth as it relates to specific works, such as Leconte de Lisle's "Qaïn," there has been no comprehensive study of the theme in modern French literature.

Although Quinones's synthesis makes important contributions to the study of the Cain and Abel story in literature, he writes very little about French literature. Sellier's synopsis is also very general and brief. As the center of a thematic structure, Cain consists of dualities, as Quinones claims, but I contend that the Cain theme builds an epic and archetypal structure. The development of the Cain theme may be traced from shortly after the French Revolution, through the Industrial Revolution, to the middle of the nineteenth century. This dissertation proposes to develop an overarching Cain archetype from the literary corpus of nineteenth century French poetry. From this study I arrive at the conclusion that the Cain myth and its avatars are interwoven into a system of myths and an archetype of humankind as marked by the curse of the first fratricide. Among the literary works to be treated are the poems "La Conscience" by Victor Hugo, "Qaïn" by Charles Leconte de Lisle, "Antéros" by Gérard de Nerval, "Abel et Caïn" by Charles Baudelaire, "Ahasvérus" and "Prométhée" by Edgar Quinet, and Ludovic de Cailleux's Le Monde antédiluvien.