Robert Merle est au purgatoire des Belles-Lettres françaises. Quelque chose dans sa trajectoire, qui va du prix Goncourt avec son tout premier roman, Week-end à Zuydcoote, aux treize tomes d’une saga historique, Fortune de France, a semble-t-il sonné le glas de sa consécration. Et ce quelque chose tient sans doute à la singularité d’un écrivain franc-tireur, allergique à toute mode, à toute école, à tout parti et qui portera un demi-siècle durant son rêve d’un « roman romanesque » qui allie le populaire à la qualité, un roman démocratique, un roman des Trente Glorieuses qui réhabilite ce « vice impuni », comme disait André Wurmser, la lecture. Ce sont des voies singulières que Merle explore, des voies qui l’entraînent vers les champs en jachère de l’expérimentation, du « mauvais genre », de la politique-fiction et du roman populaire. L’écrivain démocrate choisit, contre une littérature « mandarinale », contre tout formalisme et esthétisme, une littérature accessible, un roman romanesque, un roman à histoire où règne, en maître, la tension narrative. Et ce, au risque de la déconsécration, au risque du middlebrow. Son œuvre pourtant, si éclectique en apparence, est une œuvre essentielle car Merle est un écrivain de l’événement et du pire. Ce pire qui fit qu’une génération entière fut happée par l’Histoire et n’en sortit pas indemne. Unde malum faciamus ? Cette question qui, en filigrane, traverse tous ses écrits de 1949 à 2003, ne cessa de tarauder Merle. Toujours il s’est agi, pour cet écrivain-militant, de poursuivre le combat, envers et contre l’amnésie, les œillères, les mensonges, et de le poursuivre pour les générations à venir. / Robert Merle is in the purgatory of the French Belles-Lettres. Something in his work, which goes from the Prix Goncourt with his first novel, Weekend at Dunkirk, to the thirteen volumes of a historical saga, Fortune de France, seems to have gone awry and ended this recognition. And that something is probably due to the singularity of an independent writer allergic to any fashion, school or party who will uphold for half a century his dream of a “novelistic” novel which would be both popular and good, a “democratic” novel, a novel of the postwar boom, which rehabilitates the pleasure of reading, the “unpunished vice”, in André Wurmser’s words. Merle treads unusual paths, which lead him to the fallow fields of experimentation, to the disreputable genres of political and popular fiction. As a democratic writer opposed to “elitist” literature, as well as formalism and aestheticism, he chooses a literature which is accessible, a “novelistic” novel, in which the story itself and narrative tension are paramount, at the risk of not being recognized any longer or being dubbed a middlebrow writer. If eclectic in appearance, his work, is an essential one: Merle is a writer of the event and of the worst-case scenario. A worst witnessed by an entire generation caught up by history which did not leave unscathed. Unde malum faciamus? This question which underlines all of his writings from 1949 to 2003, never stopped haunting Merle. His goal, as a writer-activist, was ever to continue the fight against amnesia, blinders and lies for generations to come.

This dissertation is mainly on Wole Soyinka as a dramatist. It aims to show that Soyinka, far from being an irrelevant artist as some of his fiercest critics have alleged, is a deeply committed writer whose works are characterised by a strong sense of concern with basic human values of right and wrong, good and evil. Furthermore, the dissertation shows that although Soyinka is not an admirer of Marxist aesthetics, he is certainly not in the art-for-art's-sake camp either, I because he is fully aware of the utilitarian value of literature. Soyinka's works are much influenced by his social and historical background, and the dissertation shows that Soyinka's socio-political awareness pervades all these works, although it will be seen that in the later plays there is a sharpened political awareness. Although largely concerned with his own country's issues, Soyinka also emerges as a keen observer of humanity universally / English Studies / M.A. (English)

This dissertation is mainly on Wole Soyinka as a dramatist. It aims to show that Soyinka, far from being an irrelevant artist as some of his fiercest critics have alleged, is a deeply committed writer whose works are characterised by a strong sense of concern with basic human values of right and wrong, good and evil. Furthermore, the dissertation shows that although Soyinka is not an admirer of Marxist aesthetics, he is certainly not in the art-for-art's-sake camp either, I because he is fully aware of the utilitarian value of literature. Soyinka's works are much influenced by his social and historical background, and the dissertation shows that Soyinka's socio-political awareness pervades all these works, although it will be seen that in the later plays there is a sharpened political awareness. Although largely concerned with his own country's issues, Soyinka also emerges as a keen observer of humanity universally / English Studies / M.A. (English)