This work proposes a double analysis of the mundane society representations between 1885 and 1914, in the press and the novel. This analysis separates these two categories of media to insist on their particularities, and tries to think of them in terms of an interaction. / A first part explores the organisation of the topics and the main genre of the mundane society in the press, applying the social discourse theory. The analysis is based on the perusal of a set of representative daily newspapers (Le Gaulois, Le Figaro) and of weekly and monthly publications (Le Grand monde, La Vie parisienne, Femina notably, as well as around thirty other titles). It shows that the mundane society in the newspaper is constrained by a poetics stemming from the characteristics of press writing: collective writing, periodicity of the publication, text length limitation and reference to reality. Some texts are tempted by fiction, even though they keep a reality-based referential, whereas other texts that are openly fictitious, fit the mundane fiction into the newspaper. / The second part is based on the general conclusion of the first part: the mundane society in the newspaper is a represented society, made of for a distant and anonymous public. With the advent of the medias in the 19th century, the mundane society has entered into the era of mediations and "industrial writing". Some writers, from Bourget to Proust, take these upheavals into account and present the mundane society as a metaphor of the mass media society. This is done following three main axes: the temptation of withdrawal of the fiction into a closed world (psychological and mundane movement impulsed by Goncourt with Cherie, prolonged by Bourget and Hervieux notably); the games of exchange between the novel and the newspaper (Maupassant, Toulet, Legrand, amongst others); and finally, the isolation of the mundane world and the aesthetic work on mediations (Rolland, Colette, Mirbeau, Lorrain et Gide notably). All these writings address the question of sociability at the era of the triumph of mediations: what room is left for the mundane society, for direct encounter, for exchange, in a world of mediation and mass media coverage? for immediate connections in a society of mediated ties? The epilogue proposes a journalistic reading of A la recherche du temps perdu, synthesis-work which inaugurates a modern and sociological perception: it is in the world of the imagined mundane society, distant and represented in the mass media, that the narrator draws the resources for his observation of the world.

Thesis (doctoral)--Ruhr-Universität, Bochum, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-188).

Thesis--Catholic University of America.

Thesis (doctoral)--Ruhr-Universität, Bochum, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-188).

Les romans édifiants des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles – des fictions narratives en prose qui affichent clairement leur volonté de transmettre des valeurs chrétiennes et d’influencer le comportement de leurs lecteurs dans le sens de ces valeurs – développent une poétique spécifique, basée sur la recherche et le dévoilement de la vérité chrétienne à travers la fiction mondaine. Ils posent ainsi de front une question qui a hanté les écrivains et les théoriciens de l’Âge classique, à savoir la conciliation du plaisir romanesque et de la moralité. La topique du roman édifiant (personnages, lieux et temps), sa matérialité (titres, divisions internes, ensembles d’œuvres) et sa voix (narrative et rhétorique) concourent à l’élaboration d’effets de sens qui servent la visée persuasive et religieuse des ouvrages tout en créant des récits et des imaginaires propres à satisfaire le goût du lectorat pour le roman. Cette étude vise à réintégrer dans l’histoire du roman un corpus d’œuvres négligées par la critique en faisant apparaître leur contribution à l’élaboration du roman : du roman d’Ancien Régime d’abord, mais aussi du roman à thèse moderne et, par extension, de toute la fiction idéologique. / Edifying novels of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - narrative prose fictions that clearly put forth their will to convey Christian values and influence the behavior of their readers in the sense of these values - develop a specific poetics, based on the research and the unveiling of Christian truth through mundane fiction. They therefore emphasize a problem that has haunted writers and theorists of the Classical Age, namely the reconciliation of novelistic pleasure and morality. The narrative topics of the edifying novel (characters, places and times), its materiality (titles, internal divisions, groups of works) and voice (narrative and rhetorical) contribute to the development of significations that serve the persuasive and religious aim of the works while creating stories and imaginary worlds capable of satisfying the taste of the audience for the novel. This study aims to reintegrate in the history of the novel a body of works neglected by literary critics by showing their contribution to the development of the novel: the novel of the Old Regime, but also the modern novel of thesis and by extension, the entire ideological fiction.

Since Elaine Showalter's proposal of "gynocriticism", a considerable amount of work has been done in English-speaking countries to establish the existence o f a "female tradition" in literature. In France, where feminist critics have focussed on new ways "to write the feminine", there has been relatively little interest in reexamining the production of lesser-known women writers. The canon of French literature remains comparatively unchallenged, and few people are aware o f the many women who wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century. This dissertation is a contribution to the rereading of three of such authors, looking at the representation of femininity in relation to feminism. Three novels, one by Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, one by Marcelle Tinayre and one by Lucie Delarue-Mardrus. The careers of these "femmes de lettres", all established before World War I, were comparable, yet two o f them have been forgotten. These novelists remained ambivalent in relation to feminist efforts at that time to achieve the emancipation o f women. Despite their own relative freedom and lack of conformity in their lives, and the criticism o f established norms embedded in their narratives, all three kept their distance from feminism as a movement. The three texts compared here all have conservative endings, in spite of other elements that challenge the status quo. A t the core of their ambiguity is the tension between two concepts which remain in conflict today: on one hand the feminist agenda aimed at greater freedom and autonomy for women is based on the idea that gender roles are constructed, whereas on the other hand the concept of femininity is inseparable from the idea of an "essential" woman, represented, in the early 1900's in France by a particular nationalist concept of the French Woman. A close look at critical texts published in the first part o f the twentieth century shows the weight of that concept in the evaluation o f women's writing of that period. The growth in the number and reputation o f women writers ("femmes de lettres") was accompanied by a declaration o f the need to maintain French femininity ("l'etre femme"), and individual women authors like Colette, Delarue-Mardrus and Tinayre were caught in a dilemma. They all proclaimed their allegiance to the French ideal of femininity, while contributing to its denial and renewal by their own performance as successful women writers. Their representation of femininity as performed in their novels (as it was in their lives) shows the various ways in which it was possible to negociate a compromise between being feminine and challenging that concept through writing. These texts also demonstrate that women's literary production of that period in France is far more diversified than standard anthologies of French literature would lead us to believe. Colette appeals to reader's senses and aims to seduce, Tinayre appeals to reason and aims to convince, while Delarue-Mardrus appeals to the emotions and aims to move. All three, combine the "feminine" and the "feminist" in different ways, constructing literary models that represent a range of responses to a similar problem: how to remain a woman while contesting the notion of "woman". / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

Les œuvres de Marie Noël (1883-1967) sont surtout lues pour leur dimension spirituelle, mais elles offrent également une réflexion sur le rôle du poète dans un contexte chrétien. Dans un dialogue avec la tradition culturelle et religieuse à laquelle elle appartient, l’auteure s’interroge sur la valeur de l’activité poétique en mettant en scène divers personnages féminins qui se caractérisent par leur faiblesse. Ces personnages se rejoignent par un sentiment d’inutilité qui les marginalisent, mais qui leur permet paradoxalement d’atteindre une vocation plus haute. Dans la présente analyse, nous nous concentrerons sur l’œuvre poétique, c’est-à-dire Les Chansons et les Heures, Les Chants de la Merci, les Chants et psaumes d’automne et les Chants d’arrière-saison. Ces recueils présentent une certaine cohésion en ce qu’ils sont presque entièrement écrits à la première personne. Alors que les analyses critiques publiées jusqu’ici s’appuient généralement sur la biographie de l’auteure, ce mémoire propose une analyse des différentes figures qu'emprunte le sujet lyrique afin de valoriser l'écriture féminine. Plus précisément, nous montrerons comment le personnage de la femme infertile se découvre une fécondité nouvelle et accède à une maternité spirituelle à travers son activité poétique. Nous verrons aussi comment le sujet lyrique légitime sa parole en se revendiquant de l'inspiration divine, ce qui le rapproche de l’écriture mystique. / Most readers of Marie Noël (1883-1967) are interested by the spiritual dimension of her work. Nonetheless, her writings also reflect upon the poet’s role in a Christian world. While dependent on her cultural and religious background, the author wonders about the value of poetry. She introduces various feminine characters who are defined by their inadequacy but are then transformed on their own paths as writers. The following analysis focuses on the lyrical works of Marie Noël, which are Les Chansons et les Heures, Les Chants de la Merci, Chants et psaumes d’automne and Chants d’arrière-saison. These volumes are mostly written from the first-person point of view. Because of this trait, essays previously published insist on the author’s biography. This analysis, however, studies the masks worn by the lyrical subject and its constant desire to highlight the importance of women’s writing. More precisely, we will demonstrate how the character of the barren woman discovers a new fecundity and reaches spiritual motherhood through her poetry. We will also show how the lyrical subject justifies its voice while claiming divine inspiration. In doing so, the female characters are brought closer to the tradition of mystical writing.

No description available.

Ce mémoire propose une lecture ethnocritique de La Débâcle (1892), l’avant dernier volume des Rougon Macquart d’Émile Zola, comme d’un « roman de l’ultime », soit une œuvre dont l’action, située à un moment de rupture sociale, marque un effondrement tant historique que culturel (Fabre, 2013). Il étudie les représentations des fins, autant la grande fin du Second Empire zolien que celles à l’échelle des personnages (deuil, mort, dépossession), qui prennent la forme d’interdiscours particuliers (Privat, 2005). Le premier chapitre porte sur la réactualisation d’imaginaires collectifs constitutifs de la France du XIXe siècle et d’avant, tels que l’historiographie micheletienne (le mythe national), le cycle Carnaval Carême ou les célébrations pascales, qui ont en commun leur adhésion à des logiques cycliques. L’historiographie micheletienne sert à placer la chute du régime dans le cycle des nations, notamment en opposant les règnes des deux Napoléon. Les logiques carnavalesques et quadragésimales gravitent autour du personnage de Napoléon III, qui, dans le « carnaval permanent » du Second Empire (Scarpa, 2000), incarne un étrange roi de carnaval quadragésimal. Les célébrations pascales, elles, se confondent aux logiques quadragésimales, en ce qu’elles représentent autant la mort que la résurrection de la patrie avec la Commune de Paris. Le second chapitre établit la trajectoire complète de Jean Macquart depuis sa présence dans La Fortune des Rougon (1871), roman des « Origines » jusqu’au Docteur Pascal (1893) qui clôt le cycle des Rougon-Macquart. Ce personnage qui a la charge de rebâtir la France à la fin de La Débâcle est une réminiscence d’une logique traversant le cycle zolien, celle de l’Éternel retour de la nature. Ainsi, la vie romanesque de ce personnage est étudiée dans les quatre romans de la série dans lesquels il apparaît afin de comprendre comment se justifie ce cahier des charges singulier du héros civilisateur. / This thesis provides an ethnocritical reading of La Débâcle (1892), the penultimate volume of Émile Zola’s Les Rougon Macquart, as a “novel of the ultimate”, that is a work whose action is set at a moment of social rupture marking both a historical and cultural collapse (Fabre, 2013). It studies the representations of endings in the novel, including both the downfall of the zolian Second French Empire and the personal hardships of the characters (including mourning, death, dispossession), which take the form of particular interdiscourses (Privat, 2005). Thus, the first chapter of this thesis focuses on the resurgence of collective imaginaries typical of 19th century France, such as Micheletian historiography, the Carnival Lent cycle or Easter celebrations, which share their adherence to cyclical logics. Micheletian historiography makes it possible to read the fall of the Second French Empire as part of the cycle of nations, by comparison between the reigns of the two Napoleons. The carnivalesque and quadragesimal logics revolve around the character of Napoleon III, who, in the “permanent carnival” of the Empire (Scarpa, 2000), embodies a strange carnival king in Quadragesima. The Easter celebrations merge with the Lenten logics, in that they both represent the death and resurrection of the country during and after the Paris Commune. The second chapter focuses on the complete trajectory of Jean Macquart, from his start in La Fortune des Rougon (1871) – the “Origins” of the Rougon Macquart – to his epilogue in Le Docteur Pascal (1893), the last volume of the series. This character, who oversees rebuilding France at the end of La Débâcle, is a reminiscence of a logic crossing the length of the Zolian cycle, that of the Eternal return of nature. Thus, the narrative “life” of this character is studied in the four novels in which he appears, this to understand how the series justify his power as a civilizing hero.

Cette thèse a pour objet l’étude des métamorphoses de l’écriture de Marguerite Duras. Elle se fonde sur une analyse de ses romans où nous lisons d’abord une conformité aux lois du genre romanesque, puis une révolte qui se traduit par une déconstruction générique et scripturaire. Notre travail consiste en une étude des noyaux de nouveauté qui se trouvent en germes dans la période de conservatisme et leur éclosion qui innove par la suite l’écriture de l’auteur. Ces noyaux, particulièrement liés aux formes dramatiques et poétiques, seront soulignés dans leur développement et dans la façon dont ils transforment l’écriture romanesque. / This thesis investigates the metamorphoses of Marguerite Duras’ writing. It is based on an analysis of her novels where we can first read a compliance to the laws of the traditional novel, then a rebellion against any kind of generic or scriptural constraint. Our work consists in studying the germs of innovation of the conservative period and their blossoming that progressively innovates the author’s writing. We emphasize on these nuclei particularly related to dramatic and poetic forms, and on their development, as well as on the way they transform Marguerite Duras’ novel.