“As an athlete in action, she was transfigured, and escaped into a form of human perfection.” —Henry de Montherlant In Henry de Montherlant’s essay, “Mademoiselle de Plémeur”[1] the famed Parisian novelist writes an homage to the French female sprinter, Mlle de Plémeur. The essay is less biographical than it is a kind of testimony to his love for the female athlete. As one can imagine, the Montherlant straddles a precarious line throughout the text. At times he makes no secret of the fact that he finds an athletic woman sensuous, even beautiful. Their physiques are more attractive than what is often depicted in paintings, their soft skin unable to divulge the muscles hidden beneath. Montherlant dismisses men of his age who prefer women suffocating in corsets, their feet coercively bound in small shoes. But this is not because Montherlant wishes to undress them with his eyes, but observes something quite apart from the flesh. That, in the midst of training, of being caught up in sport, Montherlant acknowledges that the female athlete is able to transform her body into a higher order, one that is aesthetic as well as moral. It is in her activity that she unveils a hidden nature, a certain truth.
Aletheia and the Body
Aletheia and the Body
Aletheia and the Body
“As an athlete in action, she was transfigured, and escaped into a form of human perfection.” —Henry de Montherlant In Henry de Montherlant’s essay, “Mademoiselle de Plémeur”[1] the famed Parisian novelist writes an homage to the French female sprinter, Mlle de Plémeur. The essay is less biographical than it is a kind of testimony to his love for the female athlete. As one can imagine, the Montherlant straddles a precarious line throughout the text. At times he makes no secret of the fact that he finds an athletic woman sensuous, even beautiful. Their physiques are more attractive than what is often depicted in paintings, their soft skin unable to divulge the muscles hidden beneath. Montherlant dismisses men of his age who prefer women suffocating in corsets, their feet coercively bound in small shoes. But this is not because Montherlant wishes to undress them with his eyes, but observes something quite apart from the flesh. That, in the midst of training, of being caught up in sport, Montherlant acknowledges that the female athlete is able to transform her body into a higher order, one that is aesthetic as well as moral. It is in her activity that she unveils a hidden nature, a certain truth.