SOURCE: "Woman: The Other as Sister," in Gérard de Nerval: The Poet as Social Visionary, French Forum, Publishers, Inc., 1987, pp. 65-103.

In the excerpt below, Lokke discusses Nerval's depiction of women in his short fiction.

One glance at the titles of Nerval's major works shows women to be the heart, the center, of his fictional and poetic universe: Les Filles du feu (Angélique, Sylvie, Jemmy, Octavie, Isis, Conila, Emilie), Pandora, Aurélia, Les Chimères ("Myrtho," "Delfica," "Artémis")

This poet, who never knew his mother, who never married, who seemed most at ease with women when separated from them by the costumes, theatrical makeup and footlights of the stage, compensated for their absence in his life by granting them overwhelming power and presence in his art. The contemporary critic, inevitably looking at Nerval through the lens of current psychological and feminist theory, cannot help responding...