MSS141: Questions for Nerval's Aurélia, Part One

1.  How does Nerval describe the experience of dream in the opening paragraph?

2.  How did he experience his illness and why does he hesitate to use the word "illness"?

3.  Who is Aurélia?

4.  What event(s) seem to trigger Nerval's initial episodes of madness or "the overflowing of the dream into real life" (176) ?

5.  Once at the asylum, Nerval has a dream or a vision of returning to his family's country.  Whom does he encounter in the vision and in what forms?  What messages does he glean from this dream?  What emotions does this elicit in him? (sections IV-V).

6.  What claim does Nerval make about dreams and the sun?

7.  What meaning does Nerval derive from the dream that begins so happily in his grandfather's house and ends with a woman transfigured into a garden and the discovery of the sculpted bust?

8.  Still at the asylum, what does Nerval create with charcoal and clay?  What does he write?

9.  At the start of section IX, Nerval is released from the asylum, only to suffer a relapse later.  What circumstances provoke this second episode of madness?

10.  "Man is double (192):" in what ways does Nerval fear he has encountered his double?  Why does the idea of a double frighten him?

11.  Why does Nerval believe at the end of Part One that he is cursed?