Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

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Le medianoche amoureux is a collection of short narratives by Michel Tournier that was published in 1989. Being introduced as a collection of "Contes et nouvelles" and being compared with Boccacio's Decameron, Le medianoche amoureux has raised many questions. Some of its traits, however, were not explored: is the Medianoche amoureux a "recueil-ensemble"? If so, can it be classified as a "recueil a recit cadre", just like the Decameron? These are the questions this thesis tries to answer. After the characteristics of the different types of short narratives collections have been established, Le medianoche amoureux is confronted to it. In the same vein, it is compared to short narratives collections belonging to the Decameron 's tradition. This analysis' results do not allow to conclude that Le medianoche amoureux has enough resemblance with the Decameron and other collections of the same type to be included in this tradition. However, some traits that are unique to it, for example the progression from "nouvelles" to "contes" and the interactive structure, suggest that it should be seen as a "recueil a recit cadre" as well as being recognized as original in its construction. Le medianoche amoureux hence opens the way to a new generation of collections. This thesis' "creation" part is trying to construct that type of collection. Le second banquet can be seen as a progression from "nouvelle" to "conte" and it has an interactive structure. One must search the same kind of progression that is found in Le medianoche amoureux and see that the opening and closing texts establish an interactive structure, for the reader will have to reconstruct the context in which the narratives appear.

Since its publication in 1898, The Turn of the Screw has been the focus of diverse critical interpretation. It has reflected shifts in critical theory that include the Freudian, psychoanalytic, mythological, structuralist, reader-response, linguistic, and new-historical schools. The majority of critical interpretations have focused on the governess's narrative and have excluded the prologue, or frame narrative, that begins the novella. The critics who did examine the prologue overlooked James's departure from the traditional use of frame narration and the importance of the structure of the frame in creating a text of insoluble ambiguity. James departed from traditional frame narration in four ways. By using only an opening frame, the reader is forced to rely on the prologue in order to determine narrative reliability. By creating a condition of reciprocal authority between the unnamed narrator and Douglas, the opening frame denies the possibility of using either character to substantiate the reliability of the other. The condition of reciprocal authority is constructed through a dialogue pattern in which the narrator and Douglas interpret each other's gestures and comments and finish each other's sentences. It is the use of the pattern in the prologue that prepares the reader to accept it in the governess's narrative. The governess repeats the dialogue pattern with Mrs. Grose and Miles. Their discussions appear to validate the governess as a reliable narrator when in fact her reliability is as impossible to determine as the reliability of Douglas or the frame narrator. The result of these departures from traditional frame narration is the construction of a text of insoluble ambiguity.

M.A. (French) / This study examines the Comptes amoureux, Le Printemps and L'Esté, three frame novels of the sixteenth century in which the setting plays an important rôle. The setting in both the framework and the seven interpolated tales of the Comptes amoureux by Jeanne Flore is largely responsible for their thematic cohesion. Since parts of the volume have been lost, a garden is the only remaining setting in which the storytellers are presented. The garden constitutes a charming spot, containing many features traditionally encountered in descriptions of literary pleasances, including a preponderance of elements representing Venus. These emblems keep the theme of love, illustrated in each of the interpolated stories, constantly in view. Jacques Yver's work, Le Printemps d'Yver, contains five stories about love narrated by a group of storytellers who have retired to a country seat created by fairy enchantment. Since the frame narrative has been developed more in this collection than it appears to have been in the admittedly fragmentary Comptes amoureux, it permits the detailed description of the many distinguishing features of the gardens in which the company sit, particularly of various emblems of Venus. These garden settings provide a great many motifs which are taken up by the storytellers in their narrations, establishing an intimate relationship between the setting and the themes of the stories and thereby constituting an important difference between Le Printemps and the other two works. In this frame novel, settings within the stories themselves are not usually elaborated. Those which are presented in detail mirror the setting in which the storytellers are gathered, further strengthening the cohesion between framework and tale. The evocation of Venus, together with the motifs introduced by the outstanding features of the gardens, strengthen the bond between the disparate narratives, drawing attention to the subject of love and contributing greatly to the thematic unity of the work. In Benigne Poissenot's volume, L'Esté, the setting is not approached in the same way as it is in either of the other two works. As in the case of Le Printemps, it is painted in detail in the frame narrative rather than in the interpolated stories, but here the resemblance ends. The debates and stories are launched in three comparatively unadorned places. Although two of these are reminiscent of the attractive settings encountered in the other two works, the author emphasises their utility rather than their beauty. This incongruity, combining a down-to-earth backdrop with the often idealistic stories, constitutes the most striking feature of this volume. Unlike the traditional settings in the other two frame novels, the decor of L'Esté, by its very distance from the conventionally idyllic, ndermines the serious nature of the themes discussed, producing a mildly satirical effect. Thus, the setting in each of these three frame novels plays an instrumental, and unique, role in establishing the overall unity of each work.

La thèse isole un corpus particulièrement large dans l'Europe romantique, constitué de fictions à récit-cadre oral nocturne organisées en « veillées », « nuits » ou « soirées ». Ce constat bibliographique fait apparaître un paradoxe : la littérature de l'époque romantique rêve-t-elle encore de pratiques orales alors que s'inaugurent au même moment le fonctionnement moderne de l'ordre des livres et sa régulation par des techniques commerciales ? Comment conjuguer l'idée du sacre de l'écrivain et la nostalgie apparente pour le récit de vive voix ? Le cycle de fictions nocturnes semble d'abord une survivance ou une nostalgie des formes plurimillénaires de narration orale (Le Pantchatrantra, Les Mille et une nuits) : les auteurs ressusciteraient la technique du récit encadré pour mieux profiter de la vitalité associée à l'échange direct ainsi simulé dans ces textes. Pourtant, l'étude de ce corpus montre que la relecture romantique n'a rien d'un archaïsme. D'abord, le cycle nocturne est en réalité une forme intermédiaire entre la tradition littéraire et les modifications contemporaines du champ : parfaitement adaptées à la publication journalistique, les fictions nocturnes rétablissent néanmoins une forme d'aura auctoriale en instaurant une ambivalence orale qui suggère une présence directe du conteur. Les « nuits » permettent donc de tirer parti de la mercantilisation croissante du monde des lettres, tout en continuant à bénéficier du prestige des mages romantiques et autres poètes de la nuit... / This dissertation isolates in European romantic literature a particularly broad corpus of fictions with an oral frame organized in "watches", "nights" or "evenings". This bibliographic presence underlines a paradox: why does romantic literature still dream of oral practices whereas at the same time are inaugurated the modern textualisation of literature and its regulation by commercial techniques? How to combine the idea of the sacre of the writer and the nostalgia for direct speech ? The cycle of night fictions seems initially a survival or a sign of nostalgia of the antique forms of oral narration (Panchatrantra, Thousand and One Nights) : the authors appear to resurrect the technique of the frame narrative to benefit from the vitality associated with the direct exchange simulated in these texts. However, the study of this corpus shows that this romantic intertextual reading has nothing to do with a taste for archaism. Initially, the nocturnal cycle is actually an intermediate form between the literary tradition and the contemporary modifications of the literary context : it is perfectly adapted to publication in the press, but nevertheless makes it possible to restore a form of auctorial aura auctoriale by establishing an oral ambivalence which suggests a direct presence of the storyteller. The "nights" thus allow the author to adapt to the increasing mercantilisation of the literary world, while continuing to profit from the prestige associated to the romantic magi and other « poets of the night »...

Texte remanié de : Dissertation : ? : Universität Tübingen : 2006. / Bibliogr. p. [599]-621. Index.