SOURCE: "Angelique" and "Sylvie," in Gérard de Nerval: The Mystic's Dilemma, University of Alabama Press, 1980, pp. 203-11; 211-25

In the following excerpt, Knapp interprets the myths that Nerval created in Angelique and Sylvie, relating them to Nerval's own psychological states.

Love that moves the sun and the other stars . . .

Dante, Divine Comedy, Paradise.

The Daughters of Fire,¹ a remarkable work, includes a veritable metaphysics of fire, which takes on mythical and philosophical ramifications. The heroines of the tales in this volume—Angélique, Sylvie, Octavie, Isis, Corilla, Emilie—are all fire spirits, descendants of "that cursed race."

Fire is associated with solar symbolism and heroes: Helios or Phoebus Apollo; the worshippers of Mithra who looked upon the Sun as a conqueror: Sol Invictus. Because of the sun's daily rise and fall, it came to represent death and resurrection of the hero—the eternal repetition of life. The...