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...

Alors que le theatre d'Albert Camus recoit de plus en plus de consideration de la part des universitaires, cet ouvrage se consacre a la meilleure piece camusienne, Caligula. Il en propose une analyse structurelle, pour en faire ressortir toute la metatheatralite, et definit les rapports complexes que celle-ci entretient avec la folie et le politique : il cerne ainsi dans leur interaction les motifs qui sont au c/ur de l'/uvre. De plus, il etablit des liens aussi riches que varies avec des textes historiographiques et des /uvres-phares de la litterature occidentale, qui prefigurent le...

Ce volume se propose d'envisager un large panorama de la poesie du XXe siecle, du surrealisme a nos jours, a travers une interrogation fondamentale sur la question du lieu. Le lieu n'est pas un theme, mais une notion philosophique, tout droit venue de Heidegger mais aussi de Kant et de Platon. Comme nous sommes au XXe siecle, ere de la modernite et de l'incertitude, il se presente sous forme de question. La variete des lieux (ville / campagne) et de la position face a cette question permet de mieux comprendre l'evolution de la poesie au XXe siecle, fortement pensante (le dialogue...

This is the first major study in English of the work of the French novelist, essayist, journalist, poet and 'chansonnier' Pierre Mac Orlan (1882-1970). It assesses Mac Orlan's contribution to the post-1918 phenomenon of intellectual disillusionment and disorientation which was termed the 'nouveau mal du siecle', or 'inquietude'. Although he has largely been ignored by critics thus far, Mac Orlan was part of mainstream French literary production and a major exponent of 'inquietude'. Where he differs from his contemporaries is in his subject matter, in his use of sociological, rather than...

Ecrite en depit de radicales reticences vis-a-vis du genre romanesque, la trilogie d'Hortense conte avec une legerete feinte les aventures romanesques d'une heroine un peu " fleur(s) bleue(s) ", entremelees d'enigmes policieres conduites par les inspecteurs Blognard et Arapede. Ce melange des genres, matine d'un art ludique de l'allusion collective et personnelle permet un grand nombre d'hommages appuyes, tant l'univers de ces romans se developpe sur un vaste substrat : celui du large spectre des lectures de Roubaud. Pour la premiere fois, dans cet essai, on se propose de faire l'examen...

A partir d'une approche contrastive de l'/uvre de Georges Bataille, La fascination du Commandeur montre que la pensee francaise, tout au long du XXe siecle, a tergiverse entre deux experiences du sacre : l'une immediate, a meme le corps, l'autre symbolisee, passant par l'ecriture. Dans le contexte d'une Troisieme Republique faisant du sacre un moyen de recentrement national, Bataille reste tributaire de Durkheim et de Mauss par les difficultes qu'il rencontre a reconnaitre au sacre une dimension langagiere. Ses principaux interlocuteurs - Breton, Caillois, Leiris, Paulhan, Blanchot, Lacan -...

Mallarme hors frontieres s'attache a dessiner un nouveau profil de Mallarme et a decouvrir la mobilite de sa pensee, contrariant certaines caracterisations irremediablement associees a son nom - hermetisme, obscurite, misanthropie vis-a-vis de la realite historique -, resultant de lectures fragmentaires, souvent essentialistes de son /uvre. L'impact de Mallarme sur le Symbolisme est pourtant majeur. A partir de 1885 surtout, on assiste a une convergence d'idees, puis a un regroupement d'un vaste eventail de poetes autour du " maitre " de la rue de Rome. Eclectique, " franco-etrangere ",...

Although internationally renowned as a novelist, journalist, and essayist, Nobel Prize-winning author Francois Mauriac (1885-1970) never established a reputation as a poet. Yet it was Maurice Barres's favourable review of his first collection of verse, Les Mains jointes, that launched Mauriac's career in 1910. He went on to publish three further collections of poems and insisted to the end of his life that, despite critical neglect of his verse, he remained first and foremost a poet. This book offers the first ever in-depth exploration of the whole of Mauriac's verse output. After a chapter...

The question of memory intrigues us more and more as industrialized societies move further and further away from the written word. In the past the role of memory was integral to literary history, precise mnemonics served as the support systems for erudition, and Mnemosyne was mother of the Muses. The group Oulipo, born in reaction to the Surrealists, proposes, invents, and applies novel literary constraints. Using memory, and best of all conscious memory, as a theoretical starting point, the implications of writing under constraint are analyzed. First, writing under constraint is viewed as a...

The result of interdisciplinary collaboration rarely undertaken in such a systematic manner. Confrontations brings together literary critics, historians, and art historians to reflect on a cluster of themes inspired by the commemoration of the centenary of the Dreyfus Affair. From literary expressions of revolt in all its excess - and nuance - to the complexities of political confrontations illuminated by analyses of "J'Accuse...!", this book explores the tensions and dissent kindled throughout the century by rhetorical, artistic, and political audaciousness. These essays invite the...