Humanities desk
< June 30	<< Jun \| July \| Aug >>	July 2 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 1

French president

[1] Macron is the guy with the white shirt, right? Who is the guy in the baseball cap shaking hands with randoms? Another politican? Do I have them confused? And is the PM of France kind of an irrelevant figure? In other countries with PM's I thought it was the other way around, the PM runs things and the president is a figurehead. Thanks. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:9BB0 (talk) 12:28, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Macron is the person in the leather jacket / the baseball cap, joining Brigitte Macron for part of the take. The guy in the white shirt, shown at the start of the video may be security. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 14:36, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

France is a semi-presidential republic, or dual executive republic in which a president exists alongside a prime minister (from Semi-presidential_republic). There are two competitive readings of the French Constitution, see Constitution_of_France. To me, except may be during "cohabitation periods", the usual interpretation is in favor of a "powerful president". — AldoSyrt (talk) 14:39, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Still, to add to what AlsoSyrt said, the Prime Minister is far from insignificant. Under the previous two Republics, from 1871 to 1958, however, it was the President who was largely a ceremonial figure. Xuxl (talk) 14:46, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See also Prime Minister of France which says: "The extent to which... decisions lie with the prime minister or president often depends upon whether they are of the same political party. If so, the president may serve as both the head of state and de facto head of government, while the prime minister serves as his deputy". Alansplodge (talk) 16:33, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all. The guy in the white shirt (starting at 0:11 in the video) resembles photos of Macron that I've seen, so I got confused. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:9BB0 (talk) 20:36, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Supreme Court reversing itself more than once

With the current Sup Ct reversing well known earlier decisions, I'm wondering if there are any that it reversed more than once. Like Lawrence v. Texas reversed some earlier decisions, but Justice Thomas proposed that the current court reverse Lawrence v. Texas, so the two reversals would cancel each other out. I'm wondering whether anything like that has actually happened. We have List of overruled United States Supreme Court decisions so maybe I try do a manual self-join, but I figure I'd miss some things, and that such incidents would be known to people into such things. I asked same question in the talk page for that list article before thinking of asking here. That's probably a better place to answer, but if necessary I can relay from here. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:9BB0 (talk) 20:51, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Guy de Maupassant

My question is fairly simple: did 19th-century French author Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893) ever write about or fictionalize a character in his work based upon Suzanne Valadon? I ask, because W. Somerset Maugham biographer Anthony Curtis (1926-2014), in his 1992 introduction to The Razor's Edge (1944), describes Maugham's character of "Suzanne Rouvier" as "straight out of Maupassant". (Curtis 1992). Prior to this, in the same introduction, Curtis describes her character using an almost identical description of the real-life Valadon, however, nowhere does he mention her name. Additionally, we know that Maupassant and Valadon were contemporaries and frequented the Chat Noir at the same time (Snow 1958). One year before Curtis wrote this new introduction, the World Wide Web went public in 1991. Mosaic popularized its usage greatly in 1993, and by 1995, Netscape unleashed the flood gates. Now, here's where things get murky: from what I can surmise, post-1995, an early website creator named "The Wanderling" read Curtis' 1992 introduction, and started promoting the idea on the web that "Suzanne Rouvier was based on Suzanne Valadon". Fast forward to 2024, and all iterations of this claim appear to trace back to "The Wanderling" and his early website. Which brings me back to my original question. What exactly did Curtis mean by Rouvier being "straight out of Maupassant"? Finally, is there any good evidence besides the website created by "The Wanderling", that Rouvier is based on Suzanne Valadon? Thank you. Viriditas (talk) 21:25, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note, if anyone wants more intricate details and extended quotations from the above cited works, I have included them at Talk:Suzanne_Valadon#Re:_W._Somerset_Maugham. Viriditas (talk) 21:28, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Straight out of Maupassant" may not mean that Maupassant actually put the character in his works. It may also mean that she lives in a universe similar to that described by Maupassant (and Maupassant does describe 1880s French bourgeois society in great detail, including illicit love affairs and the demi-monde of Paris society to which Valadon belonged). It's almost certain that Maupassant would have been familiar with Valadon, as she frequented the same circles as he did, although she did not gain recognition for her art (as opposed to her modeling work) until after he was confined to an insane asylum in 1892. Given that Maupassant wrote over 300 short stories in addition to six novels, it's hard to say if Curtis is referring to a specific character. Xuxl (talk) 13:51, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, it means typical of the author's characters or plotlines; see also "straight from Kafka", "straight out of Dickens", "straight out of Steinbeck" and "straight out of Orwell". Alansplodge (talk) 15:13, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I concur, but I thought I would give it a shot.

Resolved

Viriditas (talk) 18:12, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Novelists commonly use aspects of people they know (including themselves) for modeling their fictional characters. It is very possible that Maupassant modeled some aspect of some of his characters with Valadon in mind. Independent of what Maupassant may have done, it is also possible, and definitely not per se unlikely, that Maugham used Valadon as a model for his Suzanne Rouvier. --Lambiam 19:21, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, but we are trying to source this on the Valadon page, and all I've been able to find are circular references to "The Wanderling" web site, which was published just a few years after Curtis' introduction, hence the connection. I'm curious if anyone tried to connect Valadon with Maugham's character prior to 1992. Viriditas (talk) 20:35, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]