French Literature Reviews - 2026

A. Kotin Mortimer, For Love or for Money: Balzac's Rhetorical Realism
Novel and Narrative Prose

Armine Kotin Mortimer, For Love or for Money: Balzac's Rhetorical Realism

Columbus (Ohio): The Ohio State University Press, 2012.

333 p.

Price: $52.95

EAN: 9780814211694.

Publisher's overview:

Everyone agrees that Balzac is a realistic writer, but what do we actually mean when we say that? This book examines the richness and variety of Balzac’s approaches to realism, employing several different interpretive methods. Taking love and money as the “Prime Movers” of the world of La Comédie humaine, twenty-one chapters provide detailed analyses of the many strategies by which the writing forges the powerful impression of reality, the construction we famously think of as Balzacian realism. Each chapter sets out the methods and aims of its analysis, with particular attention to the language that conveys the sense of reality. Plots, devices, or interpretive systems (including genealogies) function as images or reflections of how the novels make their meanings. The analyses converge on the central point: how did Balzac invent realism? No less than this fundamental question lies behind the interpretations this book provides, a question to which the conclusion provides a full answer.

A major book in English devoted entirely to Balzac was overdue. Here is the American voice of Balzac studies, an engaging, insightful, and revealing excursion among the masterworks of one of the most important authors of all time.

Armine Kotin Mortimer is professor emerita in the Department of French at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Honoré de Balzac stands as a monumental figure in nineteenth-century French literature, best known for his vast overarching project La Comédie humaine, which sought to comprehensively catalogue French society. This study by Armine Kotin Mortimer investigates the foundational mechanisms of his narrative art. By focusing on love and money as the twin drivers of Balzacian society, the author explores how specific rhetorical devices, plots, and genealogical structures generate the powerful illusion of reality that defines the genre of realism in the novel.

Designed for scholars and students of French literature and narrative theory, this volume addresses fundamental questions regarding the invention of literary realism. It serves as a valuable resource for readers seeking a deeper understanding of nineteenth-century prose aesthetics and the linguistic strategies behind canonical fiction. By analyzing individual masterworks through diverse interpretive lenses, the work contributes significantly to Anglo-American scholarship on Balzac, offering clear insights into the craft of one of the most significant authors in the Western tradition.