Fairy tales are enchanting geographical stories, which affectively organize space-time in socially, politically, and ethically significant ways. Despite this, fairy tales have been neglected in the discipline of geography, and the inter-discipline of fairy tale studies has rarely interrogated the spatialities of tales, or of storytelling more widely. This thesis addresses this lacuna by theorizing the relationship between fairy tales, storytelling, and geography through the subversive folkloric figures of the trickster and crone. It posits, first, that we understand fairy tales as iterative stories that constitute mythic communities; and second, that trickster and crone figures are enchanting territorializing and deterritorializing refrains that subvert this mythic community. These two concerns are explored through Nolan’s (2008) Batman film The Dark Knight, and Maitland’s (2009) short story Moss Witch. An experimental research approach provides insight into these ‘worldly,’ enchanting, and symbolically rich stories, without sacrificing their liveliness or ‘systematizing’ them for ideological gain. The research begins with an interpretive textual analysis to address the symbolic traditions of the fairy tale refrains. Collage enables a ‘retelling’ of the stories as materially and visually expressive media. Genealogical analysis traces the material-discursive matterings of the geographical refrains within academic ‘storytelling.’ These combined approaches ‘story’ the trickster and crone as spatial patterns with affective force. Trickster refrains are animating forces of destruction and chaos. They shift between the centre and periphery of mythic community, violently overturn its seemingly ordered realities, and unfold insecure and profane in-between places, where (human) community can no longer be sustained. The crone refrain enacts a ‘wilding’ in fairy tales, entangling the civilized, storied human polis (or culture more generally) with the nonhuman ‘environment,’ and undermining both relational accounts of being and more romantic discourses of dwelling. Going forward, continued engagement with this nexus of geography, storytelling, and fairy tales promises to enrich our multidisciplinary endeavours, highlight our theoretical ‘matterings’ of fairy tales, and enable more responsible engagement with these endlessly enchanting stories.

Cette thèse de doctorat a pour but d’analyser l’œuvre des poètes américaines Anne Sexton et Sylvia Plath à l’aune des études féminines et de genre en s’attachant à la question du mythe et du désenchantement. Plath et Sexton ont été étiquetées « poètes confessionnelles » ; il s’agit dans un premier temps de comprendre les mécanismes sur lesquels repose cette appellation qui participe de la construction de mythes autour des deux poètes et de les déconstruire. Plath et Sexton se sont connues à la fin des années 50, s’influençant l’une l’autre. Elles ont en commun une poétique du désenchantement, de leurs poèmes « confessionnels » à leurs réécritures de contes de fées et de mythes que l’on peut qualifier d’ « anti-contes ». Si leur style poétique diffère, les thèmes qu’elles abordent se répondent en écho, du trauma incestueux au corps féminin, de la femme au foyer à la représentation dichotomique de « la femme » en Madone et putain. Nous abordons ces sujets dans un deuxième temps en les reliant aux notions de voile et de pudeur. L’injonction à la pudeur provient en partie de la scène poétique bostonienne des années 50 à 70, de l’influence puritaine du poète Robert Lowell et des critiques misogynes. Cette étude s’applique dans un troisième temps à relier littérature et société en mettant en lumière l’influence du contexte patriarcal et poétriarcal sur et dans l’œuvre de Plath et de Sexton. / This Ph.D. thesis analyzes the literary works of American poets Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath in light of Women’s and Gender Studies and considers the notions of myth and disenchantment. Plath and Sexton were labeled “confessional” poets; this study’s first section seeks to understand the underlying mechanisms of this appellation and how it participated in the construction of myths around the two poets and also aims to deconstruct these myths. Plath and Sexton met at the end of the ‘50s and influenced each other. Their poetics of disenchantment are a common trait in their literary works, from their “confessional” poems to their rewriting of fairy tales and myths which may be called “anti-tales.” Although their poetic styles differ, the themes they pursue are similar, from the incestuous trauma to the female body, from the American housewife to the representation of women through the Madonna/slut dichotomy. In this thesis’s second section, these topics are scrutinized and considered in relation to the notions of veil and modesty. Appeals for modesty stem in part from the Bostonian poetic stage of the 50s-70s, the puritan influence of New England poet Robert Lowell and the misogynistic critics of the time. This study’s third section links literature and society and emphasizes the influence of patriarchal and “poetriarchal” context on and in Plath’s and Sexton’s poetry and prose.