Copellia

[Dave Monroe]

On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 4:12 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Watching the movie Tetro, a scene from the ballet Copellia, the broken doll,
> is portrayed. I'd never heard anyone mention the ballet in V. In light of
> Copellia, which seems so obvious to be its reference.

"There is, as I've mentioned repeatedly-to-ad-nauseum here, a long
tradition of female automata, esp. in literature, not to mention other
cultural productions.  Olympia in E.T.A. Hoffmann's 'The Sandman'
(from whence both Sigmund Freud's 'The Uncanny' and Jacques
Offenbach's ballet, Coppelia--and cf. The Rape of the Chinese Virgins
in Ch. 14, 'V. in love'), Hadaly in Villiers de L'Isle-Adam's L'Eve
Future (Tomorrow's Eve), Maria in Thea von Harbou's novel, not to
mention Fritz Lang's movie (and we know at least from Gravity's
Rainbow of Pynchon's
knowledge of Lang), Metropolis ..." ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0103&msg=53539

"Note also that both Jacques Offenbach, in Les contes d'Hoffmann
(completed posthumously, post-1880) and Leo Delibes, in Coppelia,
composed ballets depicting the female automaton, Olympia, of E.T.A.
Hoffmann's tale, 'The  Sandman,' a reading of which features
prominently in Sigmund Freud's formulation of 'The Uncanny' (1917)
..." ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0106&msg=56504
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