Michel Houellebecq sous la loupe approfondit le profil de l'/uvre de l'auteur le plus controverse du paysage litteraire francais actuel et s'attache a depasser les etudes sur cet enfant terrible des Lettres francaises parues a ce jour. En effet, force est de reconnaitre que l'interet suscite par le phenomene s'est surtout, jusque-la, traduit par l'engouement d'un public friand de la petite histoire, exception faite de quelques etudes d'envergure sur son /uvre. Michel Houellebecq sous la loupe comble la beance du fosse entre l'ecrivain et la recherche universitaire. En outre, ce recueil...

'Famille, je vous ai (encore et toujours a l'esprit?), je vous aime un peu, beaucoup, ou je vous hais enormement?' What are families like in contemporary France? And what begins to emerge when we consider them from the point of view of recent theoretical perspectives: (faulty) cohesion, (fake) coherence, (carefully planned or subversive) deconstruction, loss (of love, confidence or credibility), or, even (utter) chaos and (alarming) confusion? Which media revamp old stereotypes, generate alternative reinterpretations, and imply more ambiguous answers? What images, scenes or frames stand out...

En 1908, ecrire " un essai sur Ste-Beuve et Flaubert " fait partie des projets de Proust. Certes, il y aura l'article de la NRF, en 1920, " A propos du "style" de Flaubert ", mais l'essai annonce ne verra jamais le jour. Proust aurait-il oublie son auteur de predilection, celui qu'il imitait si bien dans ses pastiches ? Il n'en est rien. Flaubert est omnipresent dans l'/uvre proustienne mais toujours parfaitement dissimule. Le depouillement de la Correspondance, le dechiffrement des manuscrits - la demarche suivie est, en effet, celle de la critique genetique - permettent de transformer une...

L'/uvre de Richard Millet, ne en 1953, s'impose aujourd'hui comme l'une des plus importantes de ces vingt dernieres annees. L'objet de ce livre, le premier qui lui soit exclusivement consacre, est d'en eclairer la profondeur singuliere, en montrant comment elle depasse a la fois la geographie et l'autobiographie dans une veritable invention du pays, au double sens de creation litteraire et de mise au jour d'un territoire secret. Pour en etablir la genese, il etait indispensable de remonter aux livres brefs de la premiere periode, trop souvent negliges au profit des grands romans publies a...

This comparative, interdisciplinary study investigates the relationship between literature and the visual arts in France and Britain from 1750-1900. Through a close examination of the prose writings of Diderot, Baudelaire and Ruskin, read against the background of contemporary philosophy, aesthetics and theories of language, In the Mind's Eye proposes a new interpretation of the influence and rivalries underlying the development of art criticism as a genre during this period. The visual impulse - the desire to transcend the limitations of language and make the reader see - is located within...

This study examines tales from The Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC-18 AD) and from The Lais by the French poet Marie de France (fl. mid-to late twelfth century) to explore a paradox: how can a vibrant, complex, and timeless vision be conveyed in convention-informed and time-bound language? Marie plays against Ovid's tales to probe the dilemma, thereby echoing Ovid who does the same to the canonical literary monuments of his day. Both poets suggest that poetry can avoid the flattening effect of monumental canonizing not only by the creative use of literary echoes, but also by...

Contemporary French Poetics finds its origin in part in the International Colloquium on French and Francophone Literature in the 1990's held at Dalhousie University in September 1998. A certain number of the papers given at that time, and since reworked in some fair measure, take their place here alongside other studies subsequently invited. In all they form a broad and varyingly focused set of cogent and pertinent appraisals of very recent French, and to some degree francophone, poetic practice and its shifting, becoming conceptual underpinnings. Studies offered range from those devoted to...

French Prose in 2000 stems in some important measure from work presented in September 1998 at the International Colloquium on French and Francophone Literature in the 1990's held at Dalhousie University. A good number of papers given at that time, and since revisited in the light of exchanges, join here certain others specifically written for the purposes of this book. Together they constitute a wide-ranging and modally varied interrogation of the current state of French and francophone prose writing, its multifaceted manners, its richly divergent fascinations, its many theoretical or...

2002 will mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Saint Genet. Ever since that date, Jean Genet's work has largely been read and interpreted through Sartre's analysis of the author. In this study, the author seeks to liberate Genet's fiction from the philosopher's stranglehold and reopen the work to new venues of interpretation. After challenging the accuracy and pertinence of Sartre's project and describing the problematic influence it has had, the author begins his own investigation of Genet by examining the notion of precarious identity which informs the Genetian text. Through a...