Thesis (doctoral)--Université de Caen, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Université Stendahl-Grenoble III, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 426-433) and indexes.

Thesis (doctoral)--Université de Caen, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Université Stendahl-Grenoble III, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 426-433) and indexes.

This thesis is entitled ‘The "double movement”: parody in the work of Alain Robbe-Grillet, with particular reference to Un Régicide'.The principle objective of the thesis is to illustrate how a re-assessment of Pour un nouveau roman (1963) can explain the reasons behind the paradox of Robbe-Grillet's fiction and lead, consequently, to the reader's appreciation of the tension between meaning and meaninglessness in his novels. The thesis sets about this task in the following way: firstly, it examines the existing confusion over Pour un nouveau roman, and exposes the analytical weaknesses of both established interpretations of Robbe-Grillet's theory. Secondly, a new perspective of Pour un nouveau roman is offered - one which underlines the central significance of the paradoxical movement between the creation and destruction of meaning as outlined in the compilation. Next, this 'double movement' is identified as inherent to all literature, engaged in the dual process of textual assimilation and dissimilation. The self-conscious, ludic nature of the 'double mouvement de creation et de gommage' of Un Régicide is revealed to be essentially that of parody, since the reconstruction of past literary material within its narrative is later exposed and destroyed. Robbe-Grillet's first novel, rich in literary allusions and references, is a particularly dramatic conflict between the forms which it incorporates and their imminent subversion. In this sense, Un Régicide is seen to constitute the paradox of ail Robbe-Grillet's writing, in which the initial creation of meaning leads, through the deferral of a single, determinate significance, to an ultimate deception.

Diss. Univ. Trier, 2006.

Le Nouveau Roman est passé à la postérité comme l’un des exemples majeurs d’un moment intransitif de la littérature française. En déstabilisant le traitement de la narration et de l’intrigue, du cadre spatio-temporel, des personnages et des voix, le Nouveau Roman conteste la mimèsis référentielle réaliste pour se tourner vers les aspects formels de la création romanesque. Néanmoins, cela n’est pas un geste gratuit : la déconstruction formaliste, les nouveaux romanciers la revendiquent au nom d’un « nouveau réalisme ». Le Nouveau Roman se veut l’avènement d’une « ère du soupçon » sur les conventions esthétiques et les représentations diffusées par celles-ci. De plus, ce parti pris ne peut se comprendre en dehors d’un contexte historique marqué à la fois par les traumatismes de la Seconde Guerre mondiale et les impératifs de modernisation économique qui de 1946 à 1975 transforment profondément la société française. Loin d’anéantir la référentialité, le Nouveau Roman témoigne d’un conflit avec elle, si bien que sa déconstruction du roman est une reconstruction produisant de nouvelles — parfois pas si nouvelles que cela ? — formes, représentations, manières d’affirmer l’existence de l’homme et de la société. Aussi le Nouveau Roman contribue-t-il à l’imaginaire social de son époque. En proposant une lecture des romans de Michel Butor et d’Alain Robbe-Grillet, cette thèse se penchera sur la tentative néo-romanesque de réinventer et la littérature et le monde. Trois axes d’analyse guident ce travail : le premier porte sur la représentation de l’univers fictionnel parallèlement à une discussion sur le problème de la mimèsis ; le second, sur la poétique des personnages et son rapport à la question de l’identité personnelle ; le troisième, sur le statut de la socialité dans les œuvres, à travers les questions de l’identité collective, de la mémoire et des usages sociaux de la langue. / The nouveau roman passed to posterity as one of the main examples of an intransitive moment of french literature. By destabilizing the narration and the plot, the spatio-temporal framework, the characters and the voices, the Nouveau Roman disputes the realistic referential mimesis and turns itself to formal aspects of novelistic creation. However, this is not a vain gesture: the so-called nouveaux romanciers claim a formalist deconstruction in the name of a “new realism”. The nouveau roman proposes the advent of an “age of suspicion” about the esthetical conventions and the representations disseminated by them. In addition to this, with the purpose of understanding this position, one must take into account its historical context, marked by the traumas of World War II as well as the requirements of the economic modernization, which deeply modifies French society from 1946 to 1975. Far from having annihilated the referentiality, the nouveau roman is in conflict with it, so that its deconstruction of the novel is a reconstruction, creating new–sometimes not so new?–forms, representations, ways to affirm the existence of man and society. Thus, the nouveau roman contributes to the social imaginary of its time. Through a reading of the Michel Butor’s and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s novels, this thesis will focus on this attempt by the nouveau roman to reinvent the literature and the world. Three axes will guide this work: the first concerns the representation of the fictional universe along with a discussion on the mimesis problem; the second, the poetics of characters and its relation to the question of personal identity; the third, the status of sociality in the novels, addressing the questions of the collective identity, the memory and the social uses of language. / O novo romance passou à posteridade como um dos exemplos emblemáticos de um momento intransitivo da literatura francesa. Ao desestabilizar o tratamento da narração e da intriga, do recorte espaço-temporal, das personagens e das vozes, o novo romance contesta a mímesis referencial realista e se volta aos aspectos formais da criação romanesca. Entretanto, não se trata de um gesto gratuito: os novos romancistas reivindicam a desconstrução formalista em nome de um “novo realismo”. O novo romance propõe o advento de uma “era da suspeita” diante das convenções estéticas bem como das representações por elas difundidas. Ademais, tal atitude não pode ser compreendida fora de um contexto histórico marcado ao mesmo tempo pelos traumas da Segunda Guerra Mundial e pelos imperativos de modernização econômica que de 1946 a 1975 transformam profundamente a sociedade francesa. Longe de aniquilar a referencialidade, o novo romance está em conflito com ela, de tal modo que sua desconstrução do romance é uma reconstrução, com a produção de novas — às vezes não tão novas assim? — formas, representações, maneiras de afirmar a existência do homem e da sociedade. Assim, o novo romance contribui com o imaginário social de sua época. Através de uma leitura dos romances de Michel Butor e de Alain Robbe- Grillet, esta tese pretende debruçar-se sobre a tentativa neo-romanesca de reinventar a literatura e o mundo. Três eixos de análise guiam este trabalho: o primeiro trata da representação do universo ficcional paralelamente a uma discussão acerca do problema da mímesis; o segundo, da poética das personagens e de sua relação com a questão da identidade pessoal; o terceiro, do estatuto da socialidade nas obras, abordando as questões da identidade coletiva, da memória e dos usos sociais da língua.

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar como se deu a recepção ao \"novo romance\" no Brasil, notadamente no \"Suplemento Literário\", caderno cultural que integrava o jornal O Estado de São Paulo, e foi publicado entre os anos de 1956 e 1974. Inicialmente, foi feita uma apresentação geral do \"novo romance\", destacando-se suas principais obras e o contexto histórico-social do qual fazia parte. O \"novo romance\", movimento surgido em meados dos anos 1950 na França, causou um abalo nas estruturas da arte do romance, levando certos autores a questionar e a rejeitar as técnicas tradicionais - notadamente as de inspiração balzaquiana - da concepção romanesca, que consideravam desgastadas e ultrapassadas. Entre os autores que fizeram parte do movimento e que são abordados neste trabalho, pode-se ressaltar Alain Robbe-Grillet, Michel Butor, Nathalie Sarraute e Claude Simon. Apesar de haver outros escritores integrantes do \"novo romance\", esses foram os que tiveram maior divulgação no \"Suplemento Literário\". Um dos capítulos é dedicado a Claude Simon, cujo enfoque está no prêmio Nobel de Literatura que o escritor ganhou em 1985. Neste capítulo, são estudados diversos artigos de jornais e revistas que comentaram o assunto à época, e que reagiram de forma variada a essa conquista. Alguns artigos foram analisados isoladamente mas, sempre que possível e havendo pontos de contato entre eles, procurei fazer um cotejo, visando estabelecer semelhanças e diferenças, salientando opiniões contrárias e favoráveis. Para proceder à análise dos artigos e entender a reação da crítica diante das obras dos novos romancistas, tomei como base a teoria da recepção de Hans Robert Jauss, que estabelece a instância do leitor na realização da obra, a partir do conceito de \"horizonte de expectativas\". / The aim of this thesis is the analysis of the reception to the \"nouveau roman\" through the articles presented by \"Suplemento Literário\", a book of reviews published by O Estado de São Paulo, from 1956 to 1974. Firstly, we presented the general characteristics of the \"nouveau roman\" by introducing its main writers and its social and historic background. The \"nouveau roman\" was a literary movement started in the late 50\'s of the twentieth century that changed the way to produce and read novels, by rejecting the traditional techniques, mainly those related to Balzac\'s style of writing, considered as obsolete. Amongst all of the writers belonging to the \"noveau roman\" movement, we pointed out Allain-Robbe Grillet, Michel Butor, Nathalie Sarraute and Claude Simon. Even considering the fact that there were other important writers, those were the ones most referred by the authors who wrote articles to the \"Suplemento Literário\". One of the chapters of the thesis is dedicated to Claude Simon, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1985. In this chapter, we collected articles published in 1985 from newspapers and magazines in order to analyse the repercussion of the award granted to him. Some of the articles were studied separately, but, when we could find common ideas in their contents, we examined the articles in a way to emphasize differences and similarities, and different points of view. The reception theory, created by Hans Robert Jauss, was our point of reference to settle the approach of the articles as well as to understand all the reaction of the experts who criticize the novels produced by the writers of \"nouveau roman\".

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar como se deu a recepção ao \"novo romance\" no Brasil, notadamente no \"Suplemento Literário\", caderno cultural que integrava o jornal O Estado de São Paulo, e foi publicado entre os anos de 1956 e 1974. Inicialmente, foi feita uma apresentação geral do \"novo romance\", destacando-se suas principais obras e o contexto histórico-social do qual fazia parte. O \"novo romance\", movimento surgido em meados dos anos 1950 na França, causou um abalo nas estruturas da arte do romance, levando certos autores a questionar e a rejeitar as técnicas tradicionais - notadamente as de inspiração balzaquiana - da concepção romanesca, que consideravam desgastadas e ultrapassadas. Entre os autores que fizeram parte do movimento e que são abordados neste trabalho, pode-se ressaltar Alain Robbe-Grillet, Michel Butor, Nathalie Sarraute e Claude Simon. Apesar de haver outros escritores integrantes do \"novo romance\", esses foram os que tiveram maior divulgação no \"Suplemento Literário\". Um dos capítulos é dedicado a Claude Simon, cujo enfoque está no prêmio Nobel de Literatura que o escritor ganhou em 1985. Neste capítulo, são estudados diversos artigos de jornais e revistas que comentaram o assunto à época, e que reagiram de forma variada a essa conquista. Alguns artigos foram analisados isoladamente mas, sempre que possível e havendo pontos de contato entre eles, procurei fazer um cotejo, visando estabelecer semelhanças e diferenças, salientando opiniões contrárias e favoráveis. Para proceder à análise dos artigos e entender a reação da crítica diante das obras dos novos romancistas, tomei como base a teoria da recepção de Hans Robert Jauss, que estabelece a instância do leitor na realização da obra, a partir do conceito de \"horizonte de expectativas\". / The aim of this thesis is the analysis of the reception to the \"nouveau roman\" through the articles presented by \"Suplemento Literário\", a book of reviews published by O Estado de São Paulo, from 1956 to 1974. Firstly, we presented the general characteristics of the \"nouveau roman\" by introducing its main writers and its social and historic background. The \"nouveau roman\" was a literary movement started in the late 50\'s of the twentieth century that changed the way to produce and read novels, by rejecting the traditional techniques, mainly those related to Balzac\'s style of writing, considered as obsolete. Amongst all of the writers belonging to the \"noveau roman\" movement, we pointed out Allain-Robbe Grillet, Michel Butor, Nathalie Sarraute and Claude Simon. Even considering the fact that there were other important writers, those were the ones most referred by the authors who wrote articles to the \"Suplemento Literário\". One of the chapters of the thesis is dedicated to Claude Simon, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1985. In this chapter, we collected articles published in 1985 from newspapers and magazines in order to analyse the repercussion of the award granted to him. Some of the articles were studied separately, but, when we could find common ideas in their contents, we examined the articles in a way to emphasize differences and similarities, and different points of view. The reception theory, created by Hans Robert Jauss, was our point of reference to settle the approach of the articles as well as to understand all the reaction of the experts who criticize the novels produced by the writers of \"nouveau roman\".

M.A. / This study started off as a search for the factors that turn the French New Novel into unreadable, unenjoyable, difficult literature. The most obvious keyword that sprang to mind was “doubt”. This was the effect that we as a reader felt when reading the novels mentioned above. There is doubt in two areas: Firstly we doubt our own ability to comprehend, being fully aware that the French New Novel is enjoyed primarily by academics. Secondly we doubt the novelists’ ability to produce what we would call a conventional novel like those developed by novelists such as Balzac, Flaubert, Stendhal and Zola in the 19th century. The search for “doubt” in the New Novel was very fruitful. Although some critics are of the opinion that the novels of Robbe-Grillet are to a certain extent understandable, they all agree that the novels of both Sarraute and Robbe-Grillet are in essence difficult to read and inadequately develop the four basic ingredients of the conventional novel, which are: character, plot, setting and time. These four elements should, in the case of a realistic novel, reflect the reader’s reality in order to create the illusion of being real. Our study has shown that Robbe-Grillet’s development of character and description of setting do not convince the reader that they could be real. They are in fact so inadequate and incoherent that the reader struggles to reconstruct a realistic character from the bits of information provided. Robbe-Grillet further breaks all conventional rules of time and space and leaves the reader disoriented. Sarraute appears to have abandoned convention totally as she has completely done away with character and setting in her novel Ici. It requires a great effort from the reader to reconstruct the fleeting abstract conversations that make up her novel. Both Sarraute and Robbe-Grillet have provided works of criticism on their own ideas of the novel in which they clearly state that they broke away deliberately from the form and content of the 19th century novel in a quest for a new authentic novel. This study was further able to point out certain mechanisms that the authors use to create instability in their novels. The many incoherent pieces that make up these novels allow the reader to play at reassembling them and often this leads to interesting new discoveries. One of these discoveries is the simultaneous presence of two or three levels of text. Where the surface text normally contains the story line, here the surface is broken, allowing the reader to penetrate into a second level of text. Here we find the metatext where the text comments on itself. We show that the metatext in both these novels often talks about doubt and about the incoherent nature of their own text. We may thus also say that “doubt” is an important leitmotiv in these novels. We might say that the only real characters in Robbe-Grillet’s and Sarraute’s novels are the reader and the author between whom there is an active interplay, although it is a delayed interplay. The novel becomes a game much like a board game – an interactive playing field that differs with every reading. This is especially true for Sarraute whose reactions to the reader’s initial reactions to the text have been pre-programmed into the novel. The real setting is then this abstract intellectual playing field. However, the reader never reaches the point where he can say that he has successfully unlocked the mysteries of these novels. Any interpretation remains partial and is surrounded by doubt.