Le roman d’aventures anglais du dix-neuvième siècle, héritier d’une tradition issue des écrits de Defoe, de Scott, et de Dumas, trouvera ses chefs-d’œuvre dans L’île au trésor et Enlevé! de Robert Louis Stevenson. Ces textes représentent à la fois l’apogée du genre, et sa réécriture, sa subversion. Joseph Conrad, dans ses fictions aventureuses, répond à cette remise en question des conventions génériques. Les deux auteurs doivent se situer par rapport aux débats littéraires de leur époque, et à la prédominance du réalisme qui touchait à sa fin. En France, au tournant du vingtième siècle, les critiques littéraires cherchent une alternative dans la fiction étrangère au roman moribond qu’ils voient autour d’eux. Face à cette « crise du roman », Marcel Schwob trouvera, en Robert Louis Stevenson, l’auteur qui lui semble donner forme, dans ses œuvres, à un roman d’aventures qui dépasse les oppositions stériles qui alimentent le débat sur l’avenir du roman en France. Cette rencontre littéraire est le point de départ d’une réflexion qui se poursuit dans les années 1900 dans les revues littéraires, où les critiques menés par André Gide commencent à élaborer une théorie du roman d’aventures. Ce concept de l’aventure permet d’étudier la réception de l’œuvre de Stevenson, et de celle de Conrad, dans la culture littéraire spécifique de la France au début du vingtième siècle. Dans la correspondance, les revues telles que La Revue des Deux Mondes, Le Mercure de France, La Nouvelle Revue Française, les traductions, et les éditions françaises des deux écrivains, un phénomène littéraire se dessine, un transfert culturel entre les grands écrivains cosmopolites de la période. / The English adventure novel of the nineteenth century, descending from a tradition shaped by the writings of Defoe, Scott, and Dumas, was to find its masterpieces in Tresaure Island and Kidnapped! by Robert Louis Stevenson. These texts represent both the high-point of the genre, and its rewriting and subversion. Joseph Conrad, in his adventurous fiction, responds to this problematizing of the conventions of the genre. Both authors had to situate themselves in relation to the literary debates of their era, and the soon-to-end dominance of realism. In France, at the turn of the twentieth century, literary critics were seeking an alternative in foreign fiction to the moribund novel that they had inherited. In the face of the this “crisis of the novel”, Marcel Schwob was to find, in Robert Louis Stevenson, the author who seemed to give form, in his fiction, to a novel of adventure which transcended the stale oppositions which had fed the debate on the future of the novel in France. This literary encounter is the starting point for a discussion which continued into the 1900s in the literary reviews, where critics led by André Gide begin to develop a theory of the roman d’aventures. This concept of adventure permits us to examine the reception of the works of Stevenson, and those of Conrad, in the literary culture specific to France at the beginning of the twentieth century. In writers’ correspondence, in literary reviews such as the Revue des Deux Mondes, the Mercure de France, or the Nouvelle Revue Française, in translations and French editions of the two authors, a literary phenomenon takes shape, a cultural transfer between the great cosmopolitan writers of the period.

Victorian society had strict written and unwritten laws about what was permissible in terms of personal relationships. Anglican patriarchal church values governed behaviour between the classes and enforced codes of conduct on gender related boundaries of private individuals. Society subscribed to the traditional family of man, woman and children in the context of marriage. Homosexuality amongst men was punishable by prison. Government and religion preached Christian morality, yet the number of prostitutes had never been greater. This dissertation explores the problems of a pro-homosexual and anti-establishment Victorian author writing about human relationships forbidden by society. It exposes the consequences suffered by Oscar Wilde due to his investigative insights into the `Other' in the context of individual rights of preference in regard to sexual orientation, as expressed in selected texts, and his resolution of conflict, in De Profundis. / English Studies / MA (English)

In this studyi apply a feminist-narratological grid to the works under discussion. I show how narration is used as strategy to highlight issues of concern to women, hereby attempting to make a contribution in the relatively new field of feminist narratology. Chapter One provides an analysis of Pride and Prejudice as an example of a feminist statement by Jane Austen. The use of omniscient narration and its ironic possibilities are offset against the central characters' perceptions, presented by means of free indirect style. Chapter Two examines The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as a critique of Wuthering Heights, both in its use of narrative frames and in its at times moralistic comment. The third and fourth chapters focus on Charlotte Bronte. Her ambivalences about the situation of women, be they writers, narrators or characters, are explored. These are seen to be revealed in her narrative strategies, particularly in her attainment of closure, or its lack. Chapter Five explores the increasing sophistication of the narrative techniques of Elizabeth Gaskell, whose early work Mary Barton is shown to have narrative inconsistencies as opposed to her more complex last novel Wives and Daughters. Finally, I conclude that while the authors under discussion use divergent methods, certain commonalities prevail. Among these are the presentation of alternatives women have within their constraining circumstances and the recognition of their moral accountability for the choices they make. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

In this studyi apply a feminist-narratological grid to the works under discussion. I show how narration is used as strategy to highlight issues of concern to women, hereby attempting to make a contribution in the relatively new field of feminist narratology. Chapter One provides an analysis of Pride and Prejudice as an example of a feminist statement by Jane Austen. The use of omniscient narration and its ironic possibilities are offset against the central characters' perceptions, presented by means of free indirect style. Chapter Two examines The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as a critique of Wuthering Heights, both in its use of narrative frames and in its at times moralistic comment. The third and fourth chapters focus on Charlotte Bronte. Her ambivalences about the situation of women, be they writers, narrators or characters, are explored. These are seen to be revealed in her narrative strategies, particularly in her attainment of closure, or its lack. Chapter Five explores the increasing sophistication of the narrative techniques of Elizabeth Gaskell, whose early work Mary Barton is shown to have narrative inconsistencies as opposed to her more complex last novel Wives and Daughters. Finally, I conclude that while the authors under discussion use divergent methods, certain commonalities prevail. Among these are the presentation of alternatives women have within their constraining circumstances and the recognition of their moral accountability for the choices they make. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)