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This thesis offers a new perspective on Leon-Gontran Damas through a postcolonial reading of his works. It integrates genre theory into its analysis in order to demonstrate how his conceptualisation of Negritude modulated. In particular, it theorises that the modulation in Damasian Negritude ideology occurs alongside the adoption of certain literary forms. The introduction establishes the background for research on Damas's work and contextualises it through recent approaches to postcolonial studies and genre theory, and the four chapters of the thesis analyse how generic experimentation allows different perspectives of Damasian Negritude to emerge. The first chapter examines Damas's Pigments (1937), and how the different voices within this poetry collection together represent an emergence of anti-colonial consciousness, or a Saidian 'voyage in'. Following this, the second chapter, which examines Retour de Guyane (1938), analyses Damas's encounter with colonialism in Guyane through his ethnographic essay. The third chapter on Veillees noires (1943) explores how Damas returns to his own Guyanese cultural traditions, contesting colonialism through his representation of folk tales. Finally, the fourth chapter, on Black-Label (1956) suggests that the long poem is a reflection upon colonialism and its afterlives. In demonstrating that the evolution of Damasian Negritude is linked to generic experimentation, this thesis presents the author's alternative trajectory of Negritude as an imaginative and mutable process of a voyage, encounter, return and reflection. An original contribution to postcolonial studies and Francophone studies is made in three ways. Firstly, this research develops the notion of Damasian Negritude as a dynamic and unstable process of literary expression. Secondly, it considers Damas as an author who wrote in opposition to French empire. Thirdly, the study combines a postcolonial approach to literature with genre theory for the first time, and thus aims to further expand the purview of the literary dimension of postcolonial studies.

André Breton, leader of the Surrealist movement, which he had founded with others in 1924 in the wake of the First World War, left Nazi-occupied France in 1941. Sailing from Marseilles, with an enforced three week stop in Martinique while waiting for onward passage, he chose to carry the spirit of Surrealism into ‘exile’ in the United States until 1946, rather than risk its extinction by remaining in war-torn Europe. Following his journey into exile, this thesis traces the trajectory of Breton’s thought and poetic output of 1941–1948, studying the major works written during those years and following his ever deeper research into hermeticism, myth and the occult in his quest for “un mythe nouveau” for the post-war world. Having abandoned political action on leaving the Communist Party in 1935, he nonetheless remained preoccupied with political thought, searching to find a means of creating a better society for a shattered post-war world, while at the same time maintaining a close connection between art and life. Realizing that any political system would inflect Surrealism to its own ends, Breton sought to find a means of achieving his aim through a return to the role of the ‘poet-mage’ of Romanticism. We follow the poet on his quest during these years, revealing his in-depth exploration of the tenets of Romanticism in which he discovers the roots of Surrealism, demonstrating also how he was affected by his re-reading of Victor Hugo, with whom he identifies to a certain extent during his time in exile. We study his poetic output of these years, in which we follow from their earliest stages indications of the shift in direction, away from political action towards hermeticism and the occult. On his return to France in 1946, we see Breton come under sustained attack from his detractors for his journey into hermeticism. Undaunted, he holds to his course, apparently unaware of his misreading of the spirit of the time. Although Surrealism is far from dead, its leader seems from this time to lose his creative inspiration and while his writing continues, his poetic output dwindles to almost nothing. However, even some years after Breton’s death, Julien Gracq predicts that it is “no longer unreasonable to imagine [...] that one day Surrealism will have an heir, a movement whose form we cannot predict”.

Benjamin Péret effectua deux longs séjours au Brésil : à la fin des années vingt et en 1955/1956. Parti en quête de ressourcement dans la multiplicité des racines de la culture brésilienne, il est accueilli en 1929 par Oswald de Andrade et les membres du mouvement anthropophage, qui érigeaient comme référentiel mythique l’Indien cannibale. C’est toutefois une autre découverte capitale que fait le poète français : l’autre altérité intérieure, le Noir, dans ses dimensions magique et mythique, historique et politique. La poésie "primitive" et sauvage identifiée dans les mystérieux rituels afro-brésiliens prend pour lui valeur de révélation. Les dédoublements de cette découverte séminale se trouvent ainsi à la base d’une formulation théorique sur la primitivité enfouie dans les profondeurs de la conscience, identifiée à la dynamique spontanée de la vie. Les écrits du deuxième séjour poursuivent cet investissement. Ils mettent cette fois en scène l’autre altérité brésilienne : les autochtones. Du reportage à l’essai critique, du récit de voyage à l’essai historique, de la sentence au poème, du conte au [à la parodie du] mythe, le poète emprunte plusieurs registres génériques. Cette étude problématise l’expérience brésilienne de Benjamin Péret. Elle met en relief le caractère interculturel et intertextuel de son intervention. Elle rend évidentes les répercussions de cette rencontre dans sa mythologie personnelle comme dans l’agencement de sa pensée et de son œuvre. Elle dégage les constellations mythopoétiques et la communion d’imaginaires entre le poète et son pays d’accueil. Elle les relie, enfin, aux exigences éthiques et au projet esthétique du surréalisme. / Benjamin Péret has twice spent long periods of time in Brazil: both at the end of the 1920's and in 1955/56. After leaving Europe to immerse himself in Brazilian cultural roots, he was welcomed by members of the "anthropophagous" movement, conducted by Oswald de Andrade, a movement centered on a mythical figure - the Indian cannibal. His trip resulted in a fundamental discovery: the inner Other: the Black, in its magical, mythical, historical and political dimensions. "Primitive" and salvage poetry, as in the mysterious afro-brazilian rituals, acted as a revelation for him and enabled him to develop a theory about primitivism as deeply rooted in Consciousness and linked with the dynamic of life. During his second stay, Péret continued his explorations and focused his writing on a different type of Other: the Autochton. He used different literary genres to express and explore Otherness: critical and historical essay, travel stories, documentaries, poems, sentences, short-stories, and (parody of) myths. This study makes inroads into Péret's Brazilian experiences, highlights the intercultural and intertextual nature of his encounter with Brazil and demonstrates its impact on his own mythology, on his thinking and on his writing, which is always linked with surrealism and its ethical and aesthetical requirements.

L’étude de locutions de soldats, de La Jeune Parque de Valéry et de Calligrammes de Apollinaire manifeste une variété de fonctionnements psychiques durant la Première Guerre mondiale. La lecture utilise les instruments d’intelligibilité de la psychologie collective proposés par Freud. Collecté par Gaston Esnault, Le poilu tel qu’il se parle révèle les inventions des soldats pour supporter la guerre et la dénoncer. Le régime de terreur n’empêcha pas les soldats de fonctionner en collectifs démocratiques. Le réalisme et la décence de locutions en témoignent malgré l’horreur ou la détresse vécues : compromis entre la violence et sa dénonciation par l’humour. Paul Valéry a participé à l’idéologie patriotique : La Jeune Parque présenta aux classes sociales dominantes un miroir. La censure collective a refusé d’entendre la présence de la guerre dans ce poème. Certains mots, images suggérées, indices figurent la sujétion de Valéry au régime dominant. La lecture de vers en regard des événements éclaire des phrases obscures. Le référentiel de l’Antiquité masque la guerre. Dans Calligrammes, Apollinaire dit à ses lecteurs sa mélancolie, à l’œuvre dès avant son engagement dans la guerre, amplifiée au fur et à mesure qu’il agit la guerre, en revient blessé, puis se dégage des identifications collectives. Une lecture attentive du poème Il y a révèle sa fonction dans le recueil : un calligramme issu de la guerre et adressé à la femme aimée, figurant la guerre dans son horreur et ses angoisses. Apollinaire dénonce la censure collective. La langue commune offre aux locuteurs, même en temps de guerre, la possibilité de fonctionner en régime démocratique. / The study of the sayings of soldiers, of La Jeune Parque by Paul Valéry, and Calligrammes by Guillaume Apollinaire demonstrates a variety of psychic functions during the First World War. The readings use the tools of the intelligibility of collective psychology put forward by Freud. Collected by Gaston Esnault, Le poilu tel qu'il se parle reveals the creative ways in which ordinary soldiers contrived to bear and denounce the war. The regime of terror imposed did not stop the troops functioning, wherever possible, in democratic collectives. The realism, the decency of certain sayings testifies to this, despite the horror and distress the troops experienced. Certain sayings remain coarse and constitute a compromise between violence and its denunciation by humour. Paul Valéry participated in the patriotic ideology : La Jeune Parque presented a mirror to the dominant social classes. Collective censorship has refused to see the presence of the war in this poem. Certain words, implicit images, sometimes clues reveal Valéry's subjection to the collective dominant regime. The reading of verses in light of events clarifies obscure phrases. The classical frame of reference masks the contemporary war. In Calligrammes, Apollinaire tells his readers of his melancholy, already present even before his engagement in the war, and which has been amplified proportionately by his participation in the war, coming back wounded, then disengaging himself from collective identifications. A close reading of the poem Il y a reveals its function in the collection : a 'calligramme' born of the war and addressed to the beloved, featuring the horror and anguish of the war. Apollinaire denounces collective censorship. Everyday language offers its speakers, even in wartime, the possibility of functioning in a democratic process.

Cette thèse étudie la réception critique de la poésie de Hugo en France entre 1914 et 1944. Elle se fonde sur une conception large et englobante de la « réception critique ». Ainsi, elle envisage la manière dont l’œuvre poétique hugolienne est reproduite et diffusée (dans des éditions savantes, des éditions populaires bon marché, des livres de luxe, des manuels scolaires, des anthologies…) ou fait l’objet d’adaptations (mises en musique, parodies et pastiches) ainsi que les discours tenus sur la poésie de Hugo, que ceux-ci émanent d’universitaires, d’écrivains et intellectuels, de journalistes, de militants, d’hommes politiques, etc. En mobilisant un corpus riche et varié, en confrontant des démarches critiques provenant de champs très différents, notre travail fait apparaître quelques problématiques récurrentes.Celles-ci sont notamment relatives au statut de Hugo comme auteur patrimonial, à la centralité de la poésie dans son œuvre (et en particulier à la centralité des trois grands recueils de l’exil, Les Châtiments, Les Contemplations, La Légende des siècles), aux lectures et aux appropriations politiques auxquelles cette poésie donne lieu, à la manière de situer Hugo dans l’histoire de la poésie française (selon les cas, aux côtés de Lamartine et Musset ou aux côtés de Baudelaire, Rimbaud et Mallarmé). Au-delà du seul cas Hugo, notre travail jette aussi quelques éclairages sur la place de la poésie dans l’imaginaire du premier XXe siècle et sur la manière dont cette période se définit par rapport à un double héritage poétique, « romantique » et « moderne ». / This dissertation studies the critical reception of the poetry of Victor Hugo in France over the period 1914-1944. Relying on an inclusive conception of “critical reception”, it considers the way in which Hugo’s poetic work was reproduced and circulated (in scholarly editions and cheap popular editions, in luxury books and school textbooks, in poem collections...) or adapted (turned into parody or pastiche and set to music by various composers). It also looks at the many discourses that were held on Hugo’s poetry, whether by academics, professional writers and intellectuals, journalists, political men and activists, etc. Drawing on an extensive corpus and a wide range of sources, confronting methodological approaches borrowed from different study fields, our work helps to throw light on Hugo’s importance as an integral part of French cultural heritage; on the centrality of poetry (especially of the three major collections published while Hugo was in exile, Les Châtiments, Les Contemplations, La Légende des siècles) within his work; on the political readings and the political uses that were made of Hugo’s poetry; on the competing ways of categorising Hugo’s work within French poetry and among French poets, as a Romantic akin to Lamartine and Musset or as a modernist equated with Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Mallarmé. Beyond the sole case of Hugo, our dissertation also sheds light on the importance of poetry in the imagination of the early 20th century, and on the way in which the literature of the period sought to define itself in relation to a two-fold poetic legacy, that of romanticism and that of modernism.