Book•
Les Chants de Maldoror
01 Jan 1868-
TL;DR: In this article, the lecteur, enhardi and devenu momentanément féroce comme ce qu’ il lit, trouve, without se désorienter, son chemin abrupt and sauvage, à travers les marécages désolés de ces pages sombres and pleines de poison.
Abstract: Plût au ciel que le lecteur, enhardi et devenu momentanément féroce comme ce qu’ il lit, trouve, sans se désorienter, son chemin abrupt et sauvage, à travers les marécages désolés de ces pages sombres et pleines de poison ; car, à moins qu’ il n’ apporte dans sa lecture une logique rigoureuse et une tension d’ esprit égale au moins à sa défiance, les émanations mortelles de ce livre imbiberont son âme comme l’ eau le sucre. Il n’ est pas bon que tout le monde lise les pages qui vont suivre ; quelques-uns seuls savoureront ce fruit amer sans danger. Par conséquent, âme timide, avant de pénétrer plus loin dans de pareilles landes inexplorées, dirige tes talons en arrière et non en avant. écoute bien ce que je te dis : dirige tes talons en arrière et non en avant, comme les yeux d’ un fils qui se détourne respectueusement de la contemplation auguste de la face maternelle ; ou, plutôt, comme un angle à perte de vue de grues frileuses méditant beaucoup, qui, pendant l’ hiver, vole puissamment à travers le silence, toutes voiles tendues, vers un point déterminé de l’ horizon, d’ où tout à coup part un vent étrange et fort, précurseur de la tempête. La grue la plus vieille et qui forme à elle seule l’ avant-garde, voyant cela, branle la tête comme une personne raisonnable, conséquemment son bec aussi qu’ elle fait p 24
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3 citations
01 Jan 2019
TL;DR: This article identified five distinct assemblage techniques (cut up, pick-up, pick up, tressage, literality and redescription) in the work of the poets under discussion, and showed how these techniques enable the creation of new movements and meanings from ready-made forms.
Abstract: This chapter identifies five distinct assemblage techniques (‘cut-up’, ‘pick-up’, ‘tressage’, literality and ‘redescription’) in the work of the poets under discussion. It shows how these techniques enable the creation of new movements and meanings from ready-made forms. After defining the particularities and distinctiveness of these techniques, as well as their impact on poetic form, the chapter illustrates how the manipulation of pre-existing materials permits these poets to disfigure poetic conventions in order to generate stylistic, rhythmic and semantic effects. While many of these experiments recall patterns associated with the lyric genre (such as elegy, imagery, the poetic address and voice) it shows that what defines the lyric is not the assigning of a voice to a speaker-subject, nor the imitation of the speech-act, but the discontinuity of multiple voices.
3 citations
TL;DR: The authors define the notion of generation litteraire as "a fin de non recevoir au mythe de l'automaticite entre histoire and creation litteraire, and notamment a "mission" du poete de parler "en temps de crise".
Abstract: "Tous les temps sont des temps de detresse," note Andre du Bouchet, "ii y a quelquefois des poetes." (1) C'est poser une fin de non recevoir au mythe de l'automaticite entre histoire et creation litteraire, et notamment a la "mission" du poete de parler "en temps de crise." Les "temps de crise" sont tous les temps, et la caracteristique du poeme, face a l'evenement historique--le plus souvent sans localisation au present--, est de s'effacer: que l'evenement integre l'utopie poetique (et il y a malentendu ou contresens) ou bien qu'il la detruise (et il y a lutte inegale), c'est dans le constat d'une langue annulee, detruite ou effondree que s'entame la realite d'une activite litteraire, c'est-a-dire du soulevement d'une epoque (societes et representations melees) par le seul pouvoir des mots. "Le desespoir n'a jamais determine a ecrire," (2) notait Blanchot, et contre Michel Deguy, il n'a jamais eu "d'aergie." (3) Le savoir propre de l'activite litteraire serait, selon Bataille, "acephale" (4): une activite de poetes "maigres" (5) ou "simples," (6) par laquelle les initiateurs de la revue moritunts (sans majuscule) sont entres dans le champ litteraire contemporain. Moriturus est un des episodes flamboyants recents de la poesie francaise. Si la revue n'a edite que 4 volumes entre 2002 et 2005 (de plus en plus volumineux et avec des signatures prestigieuses), elle est a la base d'une reflexion de fond sur l'ecriture poetique et a engendre la maison d'edition Fissile, qui perdure et rassemble un catalogue qui est mieux qu'un manifeste: une reinterpretation de la sequence poetique initiee depuis 1945 en France. Les "temps de detresse" existent moins objectivement qu'ils ne sont reveilles par des consciences particulierement aigues, auxquelles jeunesse et energie permettent de propulser a nouveau la langue, d'ouvrir les champs de perception et de comprhension des contemporains. Au coeur d'un impouvoir ou d'une vulnerabilite affirmes sont nees des ecritures singulieres qui ont toutes les caracteristiques d'une "generation." Les caracteristiques d'une generation Trois criteres determinent la notion de generation litteraire: l'unite biographique, la conscience aigue de son temps, la brievete paradoxale des parcours. Sur le critere biographique moriturus respecterait (tres ironiquement) la regle des trois unites: l'unite de lieu constituee par la geographie ou s'inscrit son activite, le sud de la France (7); l'unite de temps reperable dans les dates de naissance de ses fondateurs, nes entre 1970 et 1978 (8); l' unite d'action est la revue moriturus elle-meme, support rigoureux des editions Fissile. La phase cle du "demarrage" du groupe se situe entre 1998 et 2001. Cedric Demangeot publie Desert natal en 1998 (il a 24 ans), suivi de D'un puits (2001), chez Fata morgana. Guy Viarre publie devant le sel et finir erre en 1999, a 27 ans, aux editions Unes. Ces publications precipitent idee d'une revue. Le deuxieme critere qui signale une "generation" est la maniere d'aborder son epoque et d'en avoir une "conscience." Ce groupe qui ne passe pas par le jeu litteraire des "manifestes" et de l'introspection essaime cependant les traces d'un metadiscours en puissance, dont retrospectivement on repere les germes dans certains ecrits de Hugo Hengl, Brice Petit ou Cedric Demangeot: mais ce metadiscours n'est pas detache du travail poetique, il appartient a l'opacite du texte et veut moms produire un savoir qu'un pouvoir, une capacite d'eveil qui laisse libre. Dernier element generationnel: la fugacite. Ce critere est paradoxal, mais il est au fond extremement important. C'est en 10 ou 15 ans que l'essentiel d'une generation produit ses oeuvres fondatrices et deploie la puissance de ses themes. On sait que le siecle dit "classique" en France se reduit a 15 ou 20 ans de creation et se concentre autour de l'acme racinien. Idem pour le surrealisme, qui se fixe historiquement entre 1919 et 1929. (9) Le cas du Grand Jeu est encore plus frappant, actif entre 1928 et 1932. …
3 citations
01 Jan 2012
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide a methodology for considering the dandy as a prototype of post-humanity in selected texts of fin-de-siecle French literature, and the main theoretical framework informing the thesis is Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's concept of becoming, where mutation, mimicry, symbiosis, proximity, athleticism, assembly into packs and couples, and foregoing subjectivity are among the ways that "dandy-becomings" are manifested in the characters of Emile Zola's Therese Raquin, Barbey d'
Abstract: This dissertation provides a methodology for considering the dandy as a prototype of post-humanity in selected texts of fin-de-siecle French literature. While the enduring interest in the dandy continues to inspire numerous critical interventions, the present study’s contribution is to envision the dandy as engaged in an aesthetic and economic project, rather than an ideological one. Although largely apolitical, paradoxically, the dandy is a keen social critic who, wittingly or not, pushes to transcend the borders between humanity and animality, history and myth, body and machine.
The main theoretical framework informing the thesis is Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concept of becoming. Mutation, mimicry, symbiosis, proximity, athleticism, assembly into packs and couples, and foregoing subjectivity are among the ways that “dandy-becomings” are manifested in the characters of Emile Zola’s Therese Raquin, Barbey d’Aurevilly’s Le Bonheur dans le crime, Lautreamont’s Les Chants de Maldoror, Rachilde’s L’Animale, Villiers de l’Ile-Adam’s L’Eve future, Colette Peignot’s Ecrits de Laure, and Marcel Proust’s A la Recherche du Temps perdu. As the title implies, this study equally engages with posthumanism – a multidisciplinary field bringing together Jean-Francois Lyotard, Donna Haraway, N. Katherine Hayles, and Neil Badmington, among others. Their differing views on embodiment are especially instrumental in clarifying another paradox within the dandy: as the posthumanists, who split into those who argue for the complete virtualization of the body, and those who insist on its persistent physical presence, similarly, the dandy is torn between the drive toward imperceptibility, and a complete investment in the body as a signifying surface.
While taking into account the history of the French dandy as a cultural, intellectual, and literary phenomenon typically associated with Romanticism, the study of the dandy as “posthuman becoming” demonstrates that the figure remains relevant for a much longer period, as it projects itself well into the twentieth century. This analysis spans a period of sixty years, between 1867, the year of publication of Therese Raquin, and 1938, the year of Colette Peignot’s death. However, as the conclusion suggests, the dandy continues to look for new expressions and reappears even today in both high and low culture.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explain why there is something theoretically problematic about comparisons and how this problem can be described, and expound the matter historically: in three texts, two "scientific" ones and a "literary" one, dating from around 1870, thus, from an epoch which is, in several respects, critical for the comparative method in European science and literature.
Abstract: In a first step, I will explain why there is something theoretically problematic about comparisons and how this problem can be described. Second, I will expound the matter historically: in three texts—two ‘scientific’ ones and a ‘literary’ one—dating from around 1870, thus, from an epoch which is, in several respects, critical for the comparative method in European science and literature. The authors discussed are Charles Darwin, Max Muller, and Lautreamont.
2 citations
References
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01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine how the water motif is used in Marguerite Duras's literary work and show that water has multiple functions in these texts: it is linked to major themes and creates an enigmatic atmosphere by its association with the unknown, the inexplicable and the unconscious.
Abstract: The aim of this thematic study is to examine how the water motif is used in Marguerite Duras’s literary work. The study shows that water has multiple functions in these texts: it is linked to major themes and creates an enigmatic atmosphere by its association with the unknown, the inexplicable and the unconscious. The strong presence of water in Duras’s texts is striking. References to the water element can be found in several titles throughout her career, from early works such as Un barrage contre le Pacifique (1950) to La mer ecrite (1996), published just after her death. Almost all of her fiction take place near water – and the rain or the sound of waves serve as leitmotifs in specific novels. The water motif can play a metonymic as well as a metaphoric role in the texts and it sometimes takes on human or animalistic characteristics (Chapter 4). Several emblematic Durassian characters (e.g. the beggar-woman, Anne-Marie Stretter and Lol V. Stein) have a close relationship to water (Chapter 5). The water motif is linked to many major Durassian themes, and illustrates themes with positive connotations, for example, creation, fecundity, maternity, liberty and desire, as well as themes with negative connotations such as destruction and death (Chapter 6). A close reading of three novels, La vie tranquille (1944), L’apres-midi de Monsieur Andesmas (1962) and La maladie de la mort (1982), shows that the realism of the first novel is replaced by intriguing evocations of the sea and the pond in the second text, motifs which resist straightforward interpretation. The enigmatic feeling persists in the last novel, in which the sea illustrates the overall sombre mood of the story (Chapter 7). Finally, the role of the water element in psychoanalytic theory is discussed (Chapter 8), and a parallel is drawn between the Jungian concept of the mother archetype and the water motif in Duras’s texts. The suggestion is made in this last chapter that water is used to illustrate an oriental influence (Taoist or Buddhist) of some of the female characters in Duras’s work.
24 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the Batman's Joker as a descendant of a specifically violent circus tradition and its reflection in literature, and they describe the aesthetic of violence characteristic of these circus pantomime clowns as the essence of modernity.
Abstract: Besides the doltishly clumsy, amusingly simple and happily idiotic type of clown, there is the evil violent clown. Violent clowns can be traced back to the (circus-)pantomimes of the nineteenth century, to circus tradition and circus literature. Thus, on the basis of the popular corpo-eccentric clown-theatre presented by the French Theâtre des Funambules between 1819 and 1846, as well as the pantomimes of the brothers Hanlon-Lee, this article presents Batman’s Joker as descendant of a specifically violent circus tradition and its reflection in literature. Baudelaire and Adorno understand the aesthetic of violence characteristic of these circus pantomime clowns as the essence of modernity. The appearance and playful rearrangement, montage and reinterpretation of historical (circus) clown elements are typical for Batman’s Joker. Thus, he can be described as a neo-modern clown of violence.
22 citations
Dissertation•
01 Feb 2014
TL;DR: The authors argue that the heterotopia was never intended as a tool for the study of real urban places, but rather pertains to fictional representations of these sites, which allow authors to open up unthinkable configurations of space.
Abstract: This thesis looks to restore Michel Foucault’s concept of the heterotopia to its literary origins, and to examine its changing status as a literary motif through the course of twentieth-century fiction. Initially described as an impossible space, representable only in language, the term has found a wider audience in its definition as a kind of real place that exists outside of all other space. Examples of these semi-mythical sites include the prison, the theatre, the garden, the library, the museum, the brothel, the ship, and the mirror. Here, however, I argue that the heterotopia was never intended as a tool for the study of real urban places, but rather pertains to fictional representations of these sites, which allow authors to open up unthinkable configurations of space.
Specifically, I focus on three writers whose work contains numerous examples of these places, and who shared the circumstance of spending the majority of their lives in exile: James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, and W.G. Sebald. In each case, I argue that these sites figure the experience of exteriority constituted by exile, providing these authors with an alternative perspective from which to perform a particular kind of contestation. In Ulysses, I argue, they allow Joyce to interrogate the notion of a unified Irish identity by bringing into question the space that constitutes the common locus upon which the nation is founded. In Nabokov’s Ada, they help the author to create a world that transcends the discontinuities of his transnational biography, but also serve to contest this unreal world. In Sebald’s fiction, finally, we find a critique of Foucault’s concept. In relation to the Holocaust, he questions the validity of the heterotopia by bringing into doubt the equation of space and thought upon which it is established.
19 citations