THE INVISIBLE COLLEGE: Stendhal's The Red and the Black

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit grandhotelabyss.substack.comWelcome back to The Invisible College, my series of literature courses for paid subscribers. The introduction to and schedule for the 2026 season is here. The 2024 and 2025 archives are here. This episode, of which the first 15 minutes are free, is about Stendhal’s The Red and the Black. We speculate on Stendhal as both the first modern novelist and as the inaugural figure of the modern artist qua reactionary-revolutionary aristocrat-radical aesthete standing athwart bourgeois society. We stress the novel’s psychological analysis, metafictional technique, gender ambiguity, and political and religious critique, as well as Stendhal’s general prescience as a writer looking forward to (and influencing) later figures from Balzac to Flaubert to Nietzsche to Wilde to Camus. We emphasize Stendhal’s elevation of love, art, and nature over the quest for advancement within the social world. We quote Erich Auerbach and René Girard as important critical authorities on the novel. Please also like, share, comment, and subscribe! The slideshow corresponding to the episode can be downloaded behind the paywall: