Que la littérature française contemporaine s’approprie ce qui se passe dans le monde, cela n’étonne plus. La critique a maintes fois montré combien, depuis les années 80, et après une période formaliste des années 60-70, la fiction se tourne de manière plus assumée vers le monde. N’assiste-t-on pas, pour autant, à une dissolution de l’évènement ? À travers un corpus composé d’œuvres de Laurent Mauvignier, Emmanuel Carrère, Marguerite Duras et Claude Simon, réparties des années 60 aux années 2000, ce travail propose d’interroger les modalités de cette réappropriation de l’évènement. Procédant par touches, effleurant l’évènement, usant de métaphores, et croisant les diverses versions dont il est l’objet, les fictions contemporaines creusent le sillon des expérimentations d’auteurs comme Claude Simon et Marguerite Duras qui, dès les années 60, portent un regard critique sur la manière dont la fiction peut appréhender ce qui s’est passé. De l’évènement, il ne reste alors plus guère que ces bribes symboliques que consistuent les éventèmes. L’imaginaire de la faille prend également le pas sur les dégâts physiques engendrés par les évènements. Cette recherche conduit ainsi à souligner les liens sous-jacents qui unissent l’esthétique contemporaine aux dernières avant-gardes. Se dessine néanmoins, dans les fictions d’aujourd’hui, une tendance plus spécifique à utiliser l’évènement dans une visée relationnelle. La littérature contemporaine se fait ainsi l’écho des fêlures de l’histoire du XXe siècle avec, en perspective, la volonté de souligner ce qui rapproche ces expériences humaines. / The fact that contemporary French literature seizes what happens in the world is not surprising anymore. Since the 1980’s, and after the 1960’s and 1970’s formalist period, critic has proven many times how much fiction assumes more and more looking towards the world. Do we attend, nevertheless the dissolution of event? Through a corpus composed by works of Laurent Mauvignier, Emmanuel Carrère, Marguerite Duras and Claude Simon, going from the 1960’s to the 2000’s, this study aims to examine the modalities of events repossession. Proceeding through touches, brushing against the event, using metaphors and intersecting fragments with gaze, contemporary fictions plough the furrow of experimentations made by writers like Claude Simon and Marguerite Duras, who examine with a critical eye the way fiction can take hold of what happen in the wold. All that’s left of event is so symbolicals fragments that we call eventèmes. Physicals damages caused by events also give way to the imagination of weakness. The present dissertation thus leads to highlighting the underlying connections between contemporary aesthetics and the last avant-gardes. Nevertheless, in today’s fictions there is a more specific tendency to using the event as a relational aim. Contemporary literature is thus the echo of the 20th century’s rifts with the perspective of pointing out what brings these human experiences together.

Les fictions de Claude Simon et de Yu Hua s’affranchissent de la représentation mimétique de la réalité, traditionnellement considérée comme dogme du roman. Leurs œuvres, qui ressassent la mémoire des événements historiques dans l’Histoire du XX° siècle, ne visent pas une restauration du passé au moyen de la chronologie et de l’enchaînement de causes et d’effets. Le vécu personnel de Claude Simon et de Yu Hua les incite à réfléchir sur la valeur de l’écriture face à la violence des désastres, et à remettre en cause toutes les modalités de représentation prétendant rétablir l’ordre du monde qui est en réalité radicalement chaotique. L’aspect insaisissable, obsédant de l’Histoire les obligent à partir à la recherche de formes nouvelles, et à élaborer une transfiguration de leur objet d’écriture. Ainsi, une expérience du temps chaotique voire fantastique, la hantise des aïeux et du père, les manifestations d’un érotisme intense, d’une violence aveugle, ainsi que tous les procédés de désorganisation de la narration, toutes les étrangetés du langage, témoignent d’un constat : l’évocation du passé ne peut advenir qu’obliquement. L’importance de l’Histoire dans la diégèse et dans la genèse de leurs œuvres réfute un type de critique qui identifie ces œuvres au formalisme. Ce lien organique entre l’Histoire et la fiction montre aussi qu’une certaine littérature contemporaine, caractérisée par une volonté de rupture avec les codes classiques de la représentation romanesque, surmonte une tentation nihiliste pour suggérer une éthique. / Claude Simon and Yu Hua’s fictions abandon the traditional mimetic representation of reality. Their works, which reexamine the memory of events in the History of the 20th century, are not aimed at restoring the past by means of a chronology and a sequential linking of cause and effect. The personal life experiences of Claude Simon and Yu Hua led them to reflect on the value of writing in the face of the violence of the century’s disasters, and to question the validity of a so-called realist literature pretending to re-establish the order of the world which is in reality radically chaotic. The elusive and obsessional character of History requires the writer to set off in search of new forms, and to elaborate a transfiguration in his literary objectives. Thus, the chaotic or even fantastic experience of time, the obsessive figures of ancestors and the father, the excess of eroticism or blind violence, as well as all the disorders in the narration and the strangeness of the language, all come within an attempt to speak of a past which can only be evoked obliquely. The importance of History in the diegesis and in the genesis of their works refutes a certain type of criticism which identifies these works with formalism. This visceral connection between History and fiction also shows that contemporary literature, marked by a spirit of rupture, goes beyond nihilism and in its own way realizes an ethical value.

Lorsqu’un travail critique se propose d’étudier la présence du latin et de la culture classique chez des écrivains contemporains, c’est à la notion d’héritage que l’on pense tout d’abord. Mais cette notion d’héritage pose problème. Elle doit être considérée avec prudence, comme un possible leurre, même si elle est avérée dans les œuvres de nos trois auteurs, de par certains phénomènes formels itératifs, citations latines, ainsi que la transposition de textes antiques. S’il est donc évident que lesdites œuvres affichent une apparente continuité à la fois au niveau formel et au niveau des contenus de culture, l’Antiquité latine réinvestie perd son statut particulier : elle n’est ni objet du texte, ni voix de l’autorité, ni preuve d’érudition (même si elle feint de l’être), ni trésor d’outils rhétoriques qui favorise la séduction : au contraire, elle est un piège posé au lecteur qui fait trop confiance à sa culture. Le réinvestissement de la culture et des textes antiques que nos trois auteurs pratiquent s’approche dangereusement tantôt du stéréotype, du lieu commun, tantôt d’une réutilisation complètement personnelle de la culture antique. Le latin s’avère ou bien un produit de leur imagination d’écrivain (et en tant que tel il n’est pas tout à fait identifiable à la langue morte que nous connaissons), ou bien il fait partie de la productivité textuelle de l’écriture et passe du statut de texte à celui de matériau réutilisable. Le rapport qu’entretiennent Claude Simon, Pascal Quignard et Jean Sorrente avec le latin relève donc du paradoxe : ils réinventent, voire réécrivent l’Antiquité. / When a critic’s work intends to focus on the presence of Latin and classic culture in the work of contemporary writers, one thinks foremost of the notion of heritage. But it is this notion of heritage that poses a problem. One has to approach it in a very prudent way, as if it would be a lure, even though it is attested in the works of our three authors, through the use of recurrent formal parallels, Latin quotations, and the transposition and rewriting of ancient texts. Indeed, though it is evident that these works show an apparent continuity both in form and in cultural content, the reinvested Latin Antiquity looses its particular status: it is neither object of the text, nor voice of the authority, nor proof of erudition (although it sometimes pretends to be), nor treasure box of rhetorical tools that help seducing the reader: on the contrary, it is a trap for the reader who places his trust solely in his cultural knowledge. The reinvestment that our three authors apply to the Latin text and culture gets dangerously close either to the stereotype, the commonplace, either to a completely personal reuse of antique culture. Latin is thus either a product of their artistic imagination (and as such cannot be totally identified with the dead language that we know), either part of the textual productivity of their writing, which means that it must be considered as a reusable material rather than an autonomous text. The bond that ties Claude Simon’s, Pascal Quignard’s and Jean Sorrente’s works to the Latin is thus paradoxical in nature: what they do is reinventing, or rather rewriting Antiquity.

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\".

This thesis consists of a close reading of the representation of the Spanish Civil War in selected novels of Juan Marse (1933-) and Claude Simon (1913-). It explores how this representation, ultimately, reveals the traces of their different intellectual contexts. The initial comparison questions whether Marse's representation of the Spanish revolution in Barcelona implies, like Simon's account, a negative representation of the concept of political engagement and a similar historical pessimism. It goes on to discuss how this negative view is shaped by the writers' respective historical contexts and aesthetics. Secondly, since, to varying degrees, the novels studied make the reader critically aware of processes of narrativisation and representation, and of issues of narrative reliability and authority, the thesis explores the extent to which their representations of the Civil War are 'anti-realist'. In order to do so, it initially locates the question of 'realism' or 'anti-realism' in the texts within a wider theoretical framework: that of the critique of realism within poststructuralist French theory after Barthes. The latter debate over referentiality in literary realism also underpins ongoing critical debates over the status of history as a text. This thesis, thirdly, considers whether both writers' representations of the Civil War and of historical processes suggest a particular attitude towards the writing of history, namely whether and to what extent Simon's and Marse's representations of the war problematize the relationship between their historical referent - the events of the war and/or its aftermath - and its narration and interpretation. In particular, it asks whether Marse's texts involve the kind of rejection of progressive historical 'meta-narratives' which is implicit and explicit in Simon's representation of the Civil War, but also whether Simon's texts do, in fact, not simply undermine this model of historical causality but posit an alternative, anti-progressive historical telos.

Les fictions de Claude Simon et de Yu Hua s'affranchissent de la repr��sentation mim��tique de la r��alit��, traditionnellement consid��r��e comme dogme du roman. Leurs ��uvres, qui ressassent la m��moire des ��v��nements historiques dans l'Histoire du XX�� si��cle, ne visent pas une restauration du pass�� au moyen de la chronologie et de l'encha��nement de causes et d'effets. Le v��cu personnel de Claude Simon et de Yu Hua les incite �� r��fl��chir sur la valeur de l'��criture face �� la violence des d��sastres, et �� remettre en cause toutes les modalit��s de repr��sentation pr��tendant r��tablir l'ordre du monde qui est en r��alit�� radicalement chaotique. L'aspect insaisissable, obs��dant de l'Histoire les obligent �� partir �� la recherche de formes nouvelles, et �� ��laborer une transfiguration de leur objet d'��criture. Ainsi, une exp��rience du temps chaotique voire fantastique, la hantise des a��eux et du p��re, les manifestations d'un ��rotisme intense, d'une violence aveugle, ainsi que tous les proc��d��s de d��sorganisation de la narration, toutes les ��tranget��s du langage, t��moignent d'un constat : l'��vocation du pass�� ne peut advenir qu'obliquement. L'importance de l'Histoire dans la di��g��se et dans la gen��se de leurs ��uvres r��fute un type de critique qui identifie ces ��uvres au formalisme. Ce lien organique entre l'Histoire et la fiction montre aussi qu'une certaine litt��rature contemporaine, caract��ris��e par une volont�� de rupture avec les codes classiques de la repr��sentation romanesque, surmonte une tentation nihiliste pour sugg��rer une ��thique.

The present diploma thesis "Claude Simon. Introduction and interpretation" is philosophical interpretation of the novels of the French writer Claude Simon, the Nobel prize winner for literature in 1985, whose work has been in the Czech academic field neglected theme. My interpretation is based on the philosophy of G. Deleuze and according to him I understand Simon's work like a rhizome, that is like decentralized heterogenous links, multiplicities and lines which are not subjects to any structural model. In my interpretation I start with novel Le Vent (The Wind) from 1957, because it's a text in which are being manifest fundamental themes of Simon's poetic such as are event nature of the fiction world or the lost of transcendence and its transformation into immanence of life affairs. The analysis of the novel Le Vent makes possible to pass continuosly and frequently to Simon's other novels (Histoire, Les Gèorgiques, Le Palace, L'Herbe, La Route des Flandres). The aim of the diploma thesis is to reach coherent interpretation of the Simon's work.

La thèse se propose d’étudier différentes formes de la représentation du passé dans le roman contemporain français. Si la recherche a pu constater, depuis un certain temps déjà, un véritable « retour de l’Histoire » sur la scène littéraire actuelle, force est de constater que chez certains auteurs, ce « retour » s’accompagne d’une méfiance profonde à l’égard de la connaissance de l’Histoire et des formes (culturelles, littéraires) de sa mise en récit. Ainsi Philippe Forest, dans Le Siècle des nuages (2010), raconte-t-il l’histoire de son père tout en se posant la question de savoir comment on peut écrire cette histoire qui constamment se dérobe. Il en sort un roman historique paradoxal et foncièrement autoréférentiel qui se construit et se déconstruit sous les yeux du lecteur. De façon comparable, Jean Rouaud, dans L’Imitation du bonheur (2006), invite son lecteur dans « l’atelier » de l’écrivain afin d’exhiber les sources et les ressources de son travail. Il ne se sert ainsi des techniques de l’illusion réaliste que pour mieux les parodier par la suite. Dans Waltenberg (2005) d’Hédi Kaddour, en revanche, la critique du récit historique se fait à travers la fragmentation de l’intrigue, la multiplication des temps et des lieux ainsi que par l’abandon de la linéarité. Aussi l’auteur nous présente-t-il une histoire éclatée qui se soustrait aux catégories d’unité et de cohérence. Bien que les stratégies de représentation dans ces trois romans soient diverses, elles renvoient pourtant à un concept commun que je propose ici d’appeler le récit historique critique.Dans la partie principale de mon travail, il s’agit d’analyser les trois romans mentionnés ci-dessus en tenant compte, notamment, des outils méthodologiques élaborés par la narratologie (D. Cohn, A. Nünning, W. Wolf) et par la théorie de l’histoire (H. White, P. Ricœur, R. Kosel-leck). Cette partie principale est précédée d’une partie plus « théorique » subdivisée en trois axes de recherche : L’approche systématisante essaie de condenser certaines des caractéristiques les plus importantes du récit historique critique dans une vue d’ensemble, élargissant par ailleurs le propos sur d’autres textes littéraires (contemporains). L’approche historicisante se propose de tisser un lien entre les romans analysés dans la partie principale de la thèse et l’œuvre de Claude Simon, considérée ici comme une sorte de paradigme esthétique pour une nouvelle écriture de l’histoire. L’approche comparative, enfin, tourne le regard vers les historiens professionnels (Ginzburg, Jablonka, Boucheron) qui, à l’instar des romanciers, ont exploré, ces derniers temps, de nouvelles formes de mise en récit du passé. Si ces nouvelles formes se rapprochent du récit littéraire par l’usage qu’elles font de la fiction, elles restent néanmoins sceptiques sur la possibilité même de représenter le passé, devenant de la sorte comme un équivalent en histoire du récit historique critique littéraire. / This PhD thesis offers a study of different forms of representations of the past in the French contemporary novel. Since several years, literary critics agree that there has been something like a “return to history” on the actual literary scene. But we also have to state that some con-temporary authors combine this “return” with a profound suspicion against the knowing of history and the (cultural or literary) forms of telling it. In his Le Siècle des nuages (2010), Philippe Forest tells the story of his father while at the same time questioning himself about how to represent a story which seems to withdraw itself constantly. The result is somewhat paradoxical and may be described as a self-referential historical novel that constructs and deconstructs itself in front of the reader’s eyes. In a similar way, Jean Rouaud’s L’Imitation du bonheur (2006) invites its reader in the artist’s workshop in order to reveal the sources and the resources of the story. Exploiting the techniques of realistic illusion, Rouaud is in fact parodying them. Waltenberg (2005) by Hédi Kaddour acts differently: in this novel, historical narration is undermined by a broken storyline, by a pluralization of times and spaces and by the abandoning of the chronological order. Thus the author confronts us with a history “in pieces” that doesn’t obey the principles of unity and coherence anymore. Even if the strategies of historical representation are quite different in these three novels, they are all based on a common concept which I suggest to call “critical historical narration”.The main part of my work consists of the analysis of the three novels mentioned above, an analysis which is mostly based on methods provided by narratology (D. Cohn, A. Nünning, W. Wolf) or theory of history (H. White, P. Ricœur, R. Koselleck). This main part is preceded by a more general part that is subdivided into three theoretical approaches: the systematizing approach tries to reunite some of the most important features of critical historical narration in a synopsis and thereby takes also account of other (contemporary) literary texts. The historical approach connects the novels analysed in the main part of this thesis to the work of Claude Simon, which will be considered here as an esthetical paradigm for a new kind of historical narration. Finally, the comparative approach focuses on professional historians (Ginzburg, Ja-blonka, Boucheron) who have been exploring new strategies of historical writing in the same way that novelists have done. Indeed, if these new strategies converge with those in literary writing because of the use they make of fiction, they are nevertheless included in a more general reflection on the possibilities of representing the past. Historiography thus may provide something like an equivalent to critical historical narration in literature.

Ce mémoire explore la dynamique mémorielle au sein de l’écriture. Dans la partie création, le personnage de Sam erre à l’intérieur de ses souvenirs à la recherche de sa sœur Lidie. Il s’agit d’une tentative vaine, toujours à recommencer puisque la mémoire, liée à la conscience, est sans cesse gauchie et subjective, incapable de redonner un passé objectif. La figure de Lidie se trouve ainsi être le point central inatteignable d’une circonvolution, le mouvement circulaire révélant la présence de la mémoire dans le corps du texte. La partie essai aborde la question de la liaison entre la mémoire et l’écriture dans Le Palace de Claude Simon. Reprenant l’idée du triple présent de Saint Augustin, le passé n’est alors possible que dans un présent du passé. Cette dynamique crée un mouvement circulaire ; le personnage parcourt ses souvenirs, mais il ne peut les investir que par la lorgnette d’un présent. Cela se traduit par un texte sans début ni fin, révolutionnaire, où le souvenir, plutôt qu’un retour dans le temps, fait avancer le texte et devient le temps présent de l’écriture. / This master explores the dynamism of the memory within writing. In the creation part, the character of Sam wanders in his memories, searching for his sister Lidie. It is a vain attempt, always to begin again since the memory, related to the consciousness, is unceasingly subjective and distorted, unable to give back an objective past. The figure of Lidie find to be the unattainable central point of a convolution, the cercle trajectory revealing the presence of the memory in the body of the text. The essay part discusses the question of the bond between the memory and the writing in Le Palace of Claude Simon. Taking up the idea of the triple present of St. Augustine, the past is then possible only in a present of the past, and this dynamism creates a circular motion while the character goes through his memories that he can only invest by the lens of a present. This reveals a text without any beginning or end, revolutionary, where the memory, rather than a return in time, is moving forward the text and becomes the present time of the writing.

This thesis, consisting of five chapters, studies descriptions and images in the novels of Claude Simon which show death as an “effect of character”, in other words, as a sort of character endowed with the same traits as actual literary characters. The first chapter examines how theoreticians define literary characters. Due to the fact that death materializes as a quasi-character during the act of reading since the reader needs to decipher textual clues in order to visualize death as an effect of character, I refer to Vincent Jouve’s theory of the character-effect. The chapters that follow seek therefore to demonstrate that death possesses an anatomy which resembles that of literary characters. The second chapter concentrates on images of the dying body which are reminiscent of themes in the artistic works of the Dance of Death, of Vanitas, and of the grotesque, and which produce in the reader the impression that death has a physical body. The third chapter also analyzes descriptions of the suffering body, as well as metaphorical language in order to show that death possesses a speaking body. The fourth chapter focuses on the presence of the life drive in the representation of death. It seems that death desires life in the same way as the other characters, therefore I envision death with a body composed of drives. The fifth and final chapter pursues the affective body of death by studying descriptions of intense bodily experiences. By accumulating all the images of the different bodies, one sees the sketch of a character that I identify by the designation “the effect of character of death”. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)