French and Francophone Literature Commons^™

Timothy Bewes. Free Indirect: The Novel In A Postfictional Age. Columbia U.P., 2022., Emily Hall

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Timothy Bewes. Free Indirect: The Novel in a Postfictional Age. Columbia U.P., 2022. 315 pp.

Starring Hitler! Adolf Hitler As The Main Character In Twentieth-First Century French Fiction, Marion Duval

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Adolf Hitler has remained a prominent figure in popular culture, often portrayed as either the personification of evil or as an object of comedic ridicule. Although Hitler has never belonged solely to history books, testimonials, or documentaries, he has recently received a great deal of attention in French literary fiction. This article reviews three recent French novels by established authors: La part de l’autre (The Alternate Hypothesis) by Emmanuel Schmitt, Lui (Him) by Patrick Besson and La jeunesse mélancolique et très désabusée d’Adolf Hitler (Adolf Hitler’s Depressed and Very Disillusioned Youth) by Michel Folco; all of which belong to the …

"The Politics Of Literature In Michel Foucault: Veridiction, Fiction And Desire", Azucena G. Blanco

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article is based on two hypotheses. The first is that in the later Foucault we would find a reformulation of the status that literature had occupied in his work and the development of a politics of literature (already developed in “Sujetos irregulares: ficción y política en el Sade de Michel Foucault”). The second considers that fiction and desire are inseparably joined, which leads me to analyse the logic of Sade as logic of desire in the lectures that Foucault gave on the author at the University of Buffalo (1970). A reading of both aspects together needs to be …

La Leçon De Ouologuem Ou Le Portrait De L'Artiste En « Pisse-Copie, Nègre D'Écrivains Célèbres », Désiré Nyela

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The transformation of the African griot/storyteller into a writer was built on the sacredness of his mission, animated by the flame of engagement, inspired by blackness. However, the irruption of Ouologuem into the literary scene brought about a Copernican revolution of sorts by paving the way for a parodic reversal in the conception of the writer. Indeed, Ouologuem's knowledge of the asperities of the literary system surrounding the African novelist leads him to deconstruct the sacred character of the writer's figure; a desecration that places the figure of the writer and the fictional characters of his novel on the same …

L'Écriture Du Non-Voilement Chez Les Romancières Francophones De L'Afrique Au Sud Du Sahara, Yolande Batia

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

La plupart des lectures proposées sur les textes des femmes d’Afrique au Sud du Sahara de la deuxième génération s’inscrivent en effet dans le paradigme du dévoilement, c’est-à-dire de la critique sociale, aux côtés de la problématique identitaire individuelle largement soulignée. Force est de constater cependant que l’écriture de ces romancières, pour le volet de la critique sociale, comporte aussi un aspect qui va bien au-delà du « dévoilement ». En mettant au jour la réalité que vit la femme dans la société, l’écriture se fait l’expression de la part de cette réalité qui ne fait pas l’assentiment dans le …

Growth And Poverty Traps: Examples From Literature, Danielle Chaloux

Honors Scholar Theses

The writings of Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Knut Hamsun, and Laura Ingalls Wilder capture humanity on the page. The characters in the works of these authors are confronted by realistic or autobiographical situations and make choices based on history, personal preferences, societal pressures, and economic constraints, just as real-life individuals do. They can thus serve as data for illustrating the implications of economic models, specifically poverty traps. To do so, I will draw from Great Expectations (1861) by Charles Dickens, The Fat and the Thin (1873) by Emile Zola, Hunger (1890) by Knut Hamsun, and The First Four Years (1971) …

Agonie | The Agony, Jerry Auld, Gilles Mossiere

The Goose

Un accident d’alpinisme s’est produit en 1920 près du mont Assiniboine dans les Rocheuses canadiennes. Le professeur Winthrop E. Stone fit une chute mortelle après s’être décordé sous le sommet du mont Eon ; sa femme Margaret, n’ayant pu compléter la descente, dut attendre les secours pendant sept jours, sans eau, nourriture ni vêtements chauds. Cette tragédie la marqua à vie, et elle n’en reparla jamais. Jon Whyte, écrivain de Banff, s’est inspiré de ces événements dans The Agony of Mrs. Stone, poème publié en 1977, qui sert de toile de fond à cette nouvelle. / A climbing accident took …

The Green And The Red: A Novel By Armand Chauvel, Jenna Gersie

The Goose

Review of Armand Chauvel's The Green and the Red: A Novel.

Reason Is King And Science Is His Crown: A Study Of French Science-Fiction For The Dissemination Of Philosophical Thought, Lauren A. Gandy

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The thesis seeks to explore the didactic application of French science-fiction during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for the portrayal and dissemination of their respective philosophical theories. Studying science-fiction novels during these centuries will allow a comparison of seventeenth and eighteenth-century dissemination methods, to determine if the foundational seventeenth-century methods were retained or modified to more accurately represent the change in philosophical attitudes. Exploration of this topic will contribute to a greater understanding of French Enlightenment theory, analysis of relatively unstudied novels in the science-fiction genre, and a novel approach to “proto” science-fiction literature by connecting the previously separate genres …

Self And Stuff: Accumulation In Francophone Literature And Art, Natalie Edwards, Amy L. Hubbell

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Introduction.

Le Fait Divers Criminel Dans La Littérature Contemporaine Française (1990-2012), Fanny Mahy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Our collective representation of the « fait divers » underwent considerable revision in the early 1980s, as Marine M’Sili points out: « from being universally decried, denounced and censured, [it] sees its status change to the point of taking on a positive value », even among the intellectual elite. At the same time, according to Dominique Viart, literature takes on a new « transitivity »; it is no longer self-sufficient but requires a direct object, the world. These two developments provide a meeting ground where new and more frequent interactions between literature and the « fait divers » can take …

Translations From Allada And Experience D'Edward Lee, Versailles By Gérard Gavarry, Gérard Gavarry, Katina Rogers

Publications and Research

At the heart of Gérard Gavarry’s writing are the questions of what power language holds, and what remains beyond the reach of expression. The two translations included here, excerpts from Allada (P.O.L, 1993) and Expérience d’Edward Lee, Versailles (P.O.L, 2009), share little with each other in terms of setting or structure, but explore similar questions of the role and limits of language in relation to defamiliarization, power, and fear. The inventive reflection on the nature of language, identity, and power that, woven into the fabric of the novel, makes Gavarry’s work some of the most compelling fiction coming out of …

Proust And Eliot: An Intertextual Reading, Inge Crosman Wimmers

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Defining intertextuality as “the reader’s perception of relationships between one work and others, which either preceded or followed it” (Riffaterre), this essay sets out to highlight compelling similarities between Proust’s novel, A la recherche du temps perdu, and the fictional works of George Eliot. The emphasis is on affective memory (involuntary memory and emotional templates), ethical considerations (empathy and compassion), and the kind of self-reflexive reading both writers encourage through a complicit narration that implicates the reader. They show readers how emotional memory constitutes the essence of their personal history, thus anticipating modern research in psychology and the neurosciences. …

Pierre Bayard's Wormholes, Warren Motte

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The recent work of Pierre Bayard is trenchant, original, and deeply engaging. From Qui a tué Roger Ackroyd? (1998) Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? (2001) onward, Bayard's books have piqued the interest of readers well beyond the limited circle of those who habitually consume French criticism and literary theory, and have served thus to expand the horizon of possibility of critical writing in significant ways. Bayard writes in a conditional, hypothetical mode, rather than a declarative one, keenly aware of how very mobile literary objects are. Bayard is not afraid to take risks, and he searches for new forms through a …

Trauma And The Representation Of The Unsayable In Late Twentieth-Century Fiction, Katina Rogers

Publications and Research

This dissertation explores the ways in which several fiction writers from France, the U.S., and Latin America experiment with the form of their works in writing about traumatic experience, as they navigate the tension between a propulsion toward expression and toward silence. Some of these traumas are vast, as in Edmond Jabès’ Le livre des questions (1963-1973), which addresses not only the Holocaust, but also questions of exile and identity. Others are on a smaller scale, such as Jacques Roubaud’s Quelque chose noir (1986), Julio Cortázar's Los autonautas de la cosmopista (1983), and Macedonio Fernández’s Museo de la Novela de …

Christian Oster's Picnic, Warren Motte

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

With eight novels published by the Editions de Minuit in the last decade, Christian Oster has established himself as one of the most interesting figures in a cohort of new French writers who are gradually redefining the novel as literary form…

Rachid Boudjedra's Representations Of Terrorism: Le Vainqueur De Coupe And La Vie À L'Endroit , Lynne D. Rogers

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Contemporary fiction either idealizes or demonizes the terrorist as a cultural figure of collective values. In his two contemporary novels, Le vainqueur de coupe and La vie à l'endroit, Rachid Boudjedra, an Algerian novelist, renders two very distinct narratives although both center around terrorist activity and a major sporting event. The first novel is a sympathetic portrait of a young Algerian who gives up his studies to become part of L'Organization. Sentenced to life imprisonment, the young man becomes an international hero. Le vainqueur de coupe offers an explanation for understanding terrorism. In the second novel, La Vie à …

Crosscurrents And Confluences: Echoes Of Religion In Twentieth-Century Fiction, Eamon Maher

Books/Chapters

No abstract provided.

The Fictions Of Surrealism, Walter A. Strauss

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Surrealism is an attitude toward life, even more than a literary and artistic movement. It aspired to no less than the remaking of man and the world by reintroducing "everyday" magic and a new idealization of the Female. In many respects, its goal was spiritual renewal. This enterprise was most prominently successful in the domain of poetry and painting. The major spokesman for the movement, Andre Breton, disliked the novel. Nevertheless, the members of the movement and their associates made numerous ventures into prose fiction, with notable results. Four types of fiction are delineated: the neo-Gothic romance; the adventure diary …

Hervé Guibert: Writing The Spectral Image, Donna Wilkerson

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

This paper explores the relationship existing between AIDS (in particular the body-with-AIDS or the corps sidaïque), writing, and the spectral image in Hervé Guibert. While taking into account postmodern theory on the image, photography, and the notion of the "real," this essay examines the similitude between the image as plague and AIDS in order to reveal some central components of Guibert's postmodern conceptualization—namely the complex interplay of fact and fiction as it pertains to the body-with-AIDS. For example, the body is a privileged site from which the text radiates. It can also be mistaken for the "real" body of …

Seeing Albertine Seeing: Barbey And Proust Through Balzac, Dorothy Kelly

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The three texts, Balzac's La Fille aux yeux d'or, Barbey d'Aurevilly's Le Rideau cramoisi, and Proust's La Prisonnière, share two structuring themes: the problematic eyes of a woman who desires, and the need to see the woman in order to learn her truth. This article first does a close reading of these themes in the texts. Second, the difference between Barbey and Proust is examined in their ultimate conclusions about the truth of woman, and Proust's text is studied in its use of the impossibility of truth as the origin of its fiction.

Modernist Aesthetics And Familial Textuality: Gide's Strait Is The Gate, Roddey Reid

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The essay explores different links drawn by Edward Said and Jean Bone between early modernist fiction and what they call bachelor literature or discourse. The latter attempted to break free from the bourgeois ideology of the family as constituted in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Modernist fiction is anti-bourgeois and anti-familial in some of its deepest impulses.

In Strait is the Gate Jerome's narrative is a tale of failed courtship that has as its setting bourgeois family life in a stage of dissolution. Out of the overwrought family drama emerges an aesthetic problematic: Jerome's account of a fragmented …

Forgetting To Remember: Anamnesis And History In J. M. G. Le Clézio's Desert, Kathleen White Smith

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Unlike most of Le Clezio's previous works. Desert has a specific historical framework. The story of the young boy Nour records the struggle of the Saharaoui people of the western Sahara to claim their land from the French invaders of the early twentieth century. A second narrative, set in the present, continues that story through the experiences of Lalla: unlike the story of her predecessor, the narrative in which she figures has no clear reference to the current, militant political situation established in the western Sahara by the independence movement known as Polisario. Containing both story and document, text and …

Introduction, Lynn A. Higgins

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

From an issue of the Magazine Litteraire featuring the work of Fernand Braudel to an article by Hayden White on the "Absurdist moment" in criticism, it is clear that the disciplines of history and literary studies are converging. Historians like White and Dominick La Capra in the United States, and Michel de Certeau and the members of the Annales School in France are investigating the rhetorical modes of their craft and exploring implications of the fact that it is historians themselves who "make history." At the same time, literary scholars, emerging from Structuralism and the New Criticism, are seeking with …

Marguerite Yourcenar's Prefaces: Genesis As Self-Effacement, Colette Gaudin

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Most critics of Marguerite Yourcenar largely ignore the existence of the complex network of prefaces and postfaces which accompanies her fiction. On the basis of the success of her historical reconstitutions and of the classical perfection of her style they characterize her work either as the best illustration of a sexless literature or as a case of denial of femininity. But her prefaces cannot be read simply as an exposition of her thinking about history or as a linear history of her writing. While an authoritative voice exposes her method and asserts a will to aesthetic perfection, the writer as …

Fiction And The Ontological Landscape, Thomas G. Pavel

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The paper examines fictional ontologies in relation to the distinction between sacred and profane ontologies. This distinction suggests that most cultures organize their worldview into various ontological landscapes. Several types of such landscapes are examined and fiction is characterized as a peripheral ontology used for ludic and instructional purposes.

Käfka's Influence On Camara Laye's Le Regard Du Roi , Patricia A. Deduck

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

In Le regard du roi, Camara Laye attempted to assimilate into his own fictional world the structure, techniques, and themes which he found in the works of Kafka. A close analysis of the novel reveals not only significant influence, but direct imitation of Kafka. Although certain Kafkaesque techniques—for example, the limited perspective, and the dispensation with time and space as measurable quantities—are often used effectively in the novel, they lose much of their intricate complexity in a fictional world allowing, as Laye's does, for positive resolution. Such techniques become integral and meaningful elements only when Laye uses them within …