Morgan, Val

About the author: From 1996 Dr. Val Morgan has been teaching and lecturing in the areas of Translation Studies, Enlightenment and European Renaissance in the Department of Literature at Essex University, where she currently holds a Teaching Fellowship. Her present research interest is in the area of literary decadence with special emphasis on the place of classical discourse in fin-de-siècle decadent writing.

Legend of Gilles De Rais (1404-1440) in the Writings of Huysmans, Bataille, Planchon, and Tournier

2003 0-7734-6619-3
This study examines the literary representations of Gilles de Rais, serial-killer, devout Christian and Maréchal de France. After briefly summarizing the historical outlines of Rais’ life, it examines four literary encounters (Huysmans’ Là-bas (1891), Bataille’s Le Procès de Gilles de Rais (1965), Planchon’s Gilles de Rais (1975), Tournier’s Gilles et Jeanne (1985)) to reveal how certain issues of modern aesthetics and ethics are elucidated and problematized.