The Devil in Love (novel)

Author of The Devil in Love , Jacques Cazotte

The Devil in Love (French: Le Diable amoureux, 1772) is an occult romance by Jacques Cazotte which tells of a demon, or devil, who falls in love with a young Spanish nobleman^[1] named Don Alvaro, an amateur human dabbler, and attempts, in the guise of a young woman, to win his affections.

French critic P.G. Castex has described The Devil In Love as "the very initiator of the modern fantasy story".^[2]

Canadian critic Carlo Testa has described The Devil In Love, (in review of Stephen Sartarelli's 1993 translation) as a "terminus a quo" in the history of the demonic subgenre".^[3]

The Le Diable amoureux started a literary style known as fantastique, where surreal events intrude on reality and the reader is left guessing whether the events actually occurred or were merely the product of the character's imagination.

Plot

Don Alvaro, a young, but wise man invokes Satan. Upon seeing the young Alvaro, Satan falls in love with him, and assumes the appearance of a young woman and follows him as his page. In the journey that unfolds, Satan disguised as a woman tries to seduce Alvaro, who rejects his advances lest of losing his precious virginity. He is unwilling to compromise his honour by sleeping with a woman before they are married, and he will first need his mother’s approval of the union.^[4]

Adaptations

• 1840: Le Diable amoureux, France, a ballet by Napoléon Henri Reber, François Benoist and balletmaster Joseph Mazilier. It was later restaged in a revised version under the title Satanella by the Marius Petipa with his father Jean Petipa for the Imperial Ballet with the original music re-orchestrated by Konstantin Liadov. This revival premiered on February 10, 1848 at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia.
• 1858: "Satanella, or The Power of Love", Romantic Opera in Four Acts by Michael William Balfe.
• 1929: Le Diable amoureux, France, a comic opera by Alexis Roland-Manuel
• 1975–1989: Devil in Love (Vlyublyonny dyavol), Russia, an opera in three acts by Alexander Vustin, libretto by Vladimir Khachaturov
• 1993: The Club Dumas (El Club Dumas), Spain, a novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte inspired by and that refers to the novel.
• 1999: The Ninth Gate, United States, a film directed by Roman Polanski, starring Johnny Depp, is a partial adaptation of The Club Dumas.
• 2010: "The Devil in Love - A Soundtrack to the 1772 Occult Novel", a double-CD compilation with contributions from The Tiger Lillies, Jarboe, John Zorn, Art Zoyd and other artists; issued with a Swedish translation of the novel published by Malört Förlag.

References

External links

• Le Diable amoureux at the Association des Bibliophiles Universels (French)
• Le Diable amoureux at the Internet Archive (French) (illustrated)