caa a22 4500 463200365 CHVBK 20180405153110.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170326e20071001xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s11061-007-9033-4 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s11061-007-9033-4 Tilby Michael Selwyn College, CB3 9DQ, Cambridge, UK aut Novel testaments: Balzac's fictional wills [Elektronische Daten] [Michael Tilby] This article examines the prominent rôle played by wills in La Comédie humaine. After tracing the increasing complexity of Balzac's treatment of a number of literary and theatrical stereotypes with regard to testators and inheritance, it looks beyond the realms of characterization and plot to focus on the way Balzac's fictional wills are, by virtue of their concern with language and the authority of the word, part of the novelist's self-conscious reflection on his textual medium. The exemplary status of the will with regard to Balzac's own activity as writer stems from the way its authority is, in fact, problematic. The numerous instances of unsatisfactory wills in his fiction are, through their links with a thematic obsession with the copy, a reflection of the way the representation of the real is consistently threatened by circularity, sterility, and the counterfeit. Springer Science+Business Media, Inc., 2007 Balzac (Honoré de) nationallicence Wills nationallicence Testators nationallicence Inheritance nationallicence Fictional nationallicence Copy nationallicence Neophilologus Springer Netherlands 91/4(2007-10-01), 597-610 0028-2677 91:4<597 2007 91 11061 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-007-9033-4 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-007-9033-4 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Tilby Michael Selwyn College, CB3 9DQ, Cambridge, UK aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Neophilologus Springer Netherlands 91/4(2007-10-01), 597-610 0028-2677 91:4<597 2007 91 11061 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer