The following thesis is an investigation of the textual strategies functioning in four novels by Boris Vian: L'Ecume des jours (1947), L'Automne a Pekin (1947), L'Herbe rouge (1950) and L'Arrache-creur (1953). It examines the novels' usage of intertextuality (references, direct and indirect, to other works of literature), and analyses the potentiality for producing meaning that is contained within this usage. By conjoining the four novels in this common textual strategy, it also examines how the novels refer to each other (intratextuality), and how they may, therefore, be considered as a unified and coherent tetralogy. Within this threefold strategy, the thesis yields a new reading of the four novels: Chapters One and Two deal with caricature and 'clins d'reil' in L 'Ecume des jours, exposing an association with Surrealism and the beginnings of a novelistic mythology; Chapters Three and Four follow the surface structure of L 'Automne a Pekin, at each stage revealing the veiled intertextual structure, the importance both of Parisian novels and the genre of detective fiction; Chapters Five and Six question the status of L 'Herbe rouge as a novel of Science Fiction, exposing its oneiric qualities and the role of death; finally, Chapters Seven and Eight show how the tetralogy can be seen to reach its climax in a final novel which closes the circle, bringing the narrative back to the beginning of the first. This thesis, therefore, through the use of a critical tool (intertextuality) not before fully exploited in the context of Boris Vian's reuvre, discloses new readings of each of the four 'romans signes Vian', as well as offering a comprehensive view of a tetralogy of texts considered as one self-referential unit.

This study examines French political fiction of the 1930s, taking gender as its primary category of analysis. It considers texts by female novelists whose work has been largely excluded from critical attention, in order to bring their particular contribution to inter-war French literature to light. It integrates this analysis into a consideration of relevant and representative texts of the exclusively male canon of French political fiction dating from the 1930s, exploring points of contact and divergences to show how the work of the female authors relates to the wider context of French inter-war literary activity. Texts by eight writers are considered in detail, namely Madeleine Pelletier, Edith Thomas, Henriette Valet, Louise Weiss, Louis Aragon, Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, André Malraux and Paul Nizan. The analysis of the female-authored novels informs the study of their male counterparts, whose texts also offer fertile ground for an analysis in terms of gender. The corpus is approached, in broad terms, through the themes of commitment, sexuality and the body. These themes permit an investigation of the gendering of politicization as it is manifested in 1930s literature.

During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, acts of extreme violence were committed against women. This thesis aims to explore how Rwandan women genocide survivors respond to and communicate such a traumatic experience. From a perspective of trauma theory, it engages with the published testimonies of Rwandan women survivors, seeking to understand how the genocide is remembered in both individual and collective memory and the challenges Rwandan women face in the ongoing process of surviving trauma. Exploring the ways in which Rwandan women position themselves as witnesses, the first chapter addresses the crucial questions of who is a witness and who has the right to speak about a traumatic historical event. It distinguishes between different categories of witness and looks at the levels of witnessing in Rwandan women’s testimonies, as well as considering the role of the reader-witness in the act of testimony. Responding to an imperative of memory, the women are speaking on behalf of other survivors and honouring the memory of the victims. At the same time, the experience of genocide is shown to be deeply individual, and the second chapter provides a detailed analysis of the narrative strategies Rwandan women adopt to communicate the particularity of their experiences. Through a range of ‘translation’ techniques, the women reconstruct their individual chronologies and challenge the notion of the unsayability of trauma. However, the extremity of what the women have lived through can be incomprehensible to the reader, who is often unwilling to hear the story. One of the ways in which cross-cultural communication can be achieved is through collaboration, a process which is examined in the third chapter. The collaborator plays a complex role in the production of the testimonies, functioning not only as empathic listener, but also as writer, editor, and mediator of the story. This chapter draws out the problems associated with collaboration and also highlights its potential value for the Rwandan women as it is ultimately through the collaborator that they are able to convey their story to a Western audience. Gaining access to the Western publishing industry is just one of the many obstacles the women must face in communicating their stories, and the majority of survivors continue to be silenced. The role of silence both within and surrounding Rwandan women’s testimonies is the focus of the fourth chapter, which looks at the physical manifestations of silence within the narratives as well as the silencing of survivors in Rwanda and across the diaspora. The silencing of survivors’ stories has strong implications for the recovery of the individual, often preventing her from moving from surviving to living, a notion that is examined in the final chapter. Testimony is shown to play a central role in this transition. Yet, in the face of the politically motivated processes of national reconciliation, justice and commemoration, Rwandan women struggle to regain control over their narratives. This final chapter emphasises the importance of the community in helping women to reclaim their voice and tell their stories on their own terms. Overall, women remain marginalised figures in the writing of history, and this thesis seeks to underline the necessity of developing new ways of listening to the diversity of Rwandan women’s voices, in order not only to gain greater insight into how traumatised individuals remember but also to hear the challenge they pose to conventional Western modes of responding to trauma.

The thesis is divided into three main sections i) Introduction ii) Text iii) Critical Notes and Glossary. The frontispiece shows the title page of the Anglo-Norman MS translation of Vegetius' De re militari. i) Introduction: In the opening two chapters, the historical setting of the translation is examined. First, the background to the writing in the fourth century of the original Latin text is established, and an outline is given of the substance of the text; then a study is made of the Vegetian tradition in France from the later years of the thirteenth century to the present day. The manuscript, its date and its authorship are discussed in Chapters 3 and 4. Then the value of the French text as a translation is discussed. The sixth and longest chapter examines the language of the translation, noting points of divergence from Continental French which generally fit into the pattern of Anglo-Norman usage. A short chapter is given over to outlining the plan followed in establishing the text of this edition. The Notes to the Introduction conclude this part of the thesis. ii) Text: The text is basically that of Add.MS.1. of the Marlay Collection of the Fizwilliam Museum, Cambridge. This is a unique manuscript. Corrections and emendations, which have been kept to a bare minimum, are shown in the footnotes. iii) Critical Notes and Glossary The Critical Notes are designed to amplify and clarify the text. Extensive reference is made to the Latin original, and many difficult or obscure passages are translated into English. The Notes are followed by a Select Glossary and an Index of Proper Names. Two appendices list the various manuscripts of the mediaeval French translations of Vegetius, together with certain additional Latin manuscripts of the De re militari. The volume ends with a list of the principal works consulted in the preparation of this thesis.

This thesis intends to explore colonial fictions written in French and set in the former Belgian Congo between 1945 and 1960. The investigation will focus on George Duncan (1898-1967), Henri Cornélus (1913-1983), Marcel Tinel (1904-?) and Joseph Esser (1901-?). The thesis - throughout - will endeavour to focus on both ethics and poetics. In order to achieve this overarching (double) objective it will attempt to address the following questions: (1) how are colonised subjects and colonisers represented by this fictional material? (2) how do colonial novelists account for and/or sympathise with the emergence of a Congolese opposition after the Second World War? (3) what are the implicit and explicit strategies deployed by the corpus to support or question the discourse(s) on which Belgian colonialism was premised? (4) what is colonial imagination? Did it decolonise itself - and if so how? - with the demise of the Belgian empire in 1960? In its poet(h)ical investigation this thesis will rely (a) on a range of representatives of postcolonial thinking such as Sartre, Fanon, Mouralis, Glissant and Mudimbe, (b) as well as a number of literary critics whose work is of relevance for my study. Chapter I will contextualise the thesis from both a critical and an historical standpoint and fall into four distinct parts. Part i will provide a historical overview of the Congo under Belgian rule. Part ii will concentrate on Belgian colonial discourse with a particular emphasis on its main ideologue, Pierre Ryckmans (1891-1959). Part iii will deal with the two colonial art and literary critics Gaston-Denys Périer (1879-1963) and Joseph-Marie Jadot (1886-1967) and their attempt to (a) promote colonial writing and (b) create synergies between 'white' and 'black' literatures at a time (1945-60) which coincided with the emergence of the first Congolese writers in French under the auspices of the journal La Voix du Congolais. Part iv will focus on the reassessment of Belgian colonial literature by contemporary critics. Chapters II to V will be author-based. In each case a central text will be read with / against a number of other primary sources. Chapter II will deal with Duncan's five colonial novels and their recurring main protagonist with a particular emphasis on Blancs et Noirs (1949). Chapter III will read Cornélus' novel Kufa (1954) against his collection of short stories Bakonji. Les Chefs, (1955). Whereas Duncan's and Cornélus' fictions primarily concentrate on white male subjects for whom Central Africa is a mere theatrical backdrop meant to be metaphorically mirroring the decline of Western civilisation, Tinel and Esser give their preferences to Congolese protagonists and engage more deeply with local cultures. Chapter IV will attempt to interpret Tinel's novel Le Monde de Nzakomba (1959) in the light of (a) Tinet's journalistic pieces on the colonial situation and (b) with regard to 'négritude', one of the underlying themes of the novel. In Chapter V the reading will focus on Esser's novel Matuli, fille d'Afrique (1960). As for Tinel, the interpretation will also rely on Esser's non fictional writing, the bulk of which is dealing with bantou culture. The conclusion of the thesis will propose a paradigmatic categorisation of the Belgian colonial corpus during the given period.

This thesis is an attempt to contribute to the growing body of work on literature from the French départements d'outre-mer of Guadeloupe and Martinique. More particularly, it represents an attempt to contribute to the growing body of work on women writers from these islands – referred to here as the Antilles - and to situate recent women's writing in relation to the Antillean literary tradition as a whole. The development of this tradition is traced in the introduction to the thesis: from the French colonial writing of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to writing by white, Antillean-born 'creoles' (or békés), and the early 'assimilationist' writing of mulattoes and black Antilleans; from the radical philosophical and poetic texts of négritude, to more sophisticated, recent attempts to find ways in which to imagine Antillean identity and history. It is in relation to the more recent, black Antillean literary tradition, a tradition which has typically excluded Antillean women and Antillean women's writing, that selected novels by Guadeloupean women are examined here. This thesis traces the ways in which these writers position themselves - explicitly and implicitly - vis-à-vis the androcentric tradition which they have inherited. With reference to various feminist theoretical frameworks, it explores also the ways in which women writers disrupt the very tradition which they evoke, bringing questions of gender and sexuality to bear upon those of race. Chapter one examines three early examples of the way in which Antillean women writers interrogate the presuppositions of seminal Antillean texts, as Michèle Lacrosil's Sapotille ou le serein d'argile (1960), her Cajou (1961), and Jacqueline Manicom's Mon Examen de blanc (1972) are set against Fanon's Peau noire,masques blancs. Similarly, the second chapter examines the first two novels of the most prolific Guadeloupean woman writer, Maryse Condé: Heremakhonon (1976) and Une Saison à Rihata (1981). Here, Condé’s interrogation of négritude is explored, as are her efforts to imagine a role for women within a discourse which can be seen to be premised upon the exclusion of 'woman'. Chapter three - in which Simone Schwarz-Bart's Ti Jean L'horizon (1979) and Condé's Les Derniers rois mages (1992) are explored - deals with the way in which the Antillean quest for self-definition centres upon issues of legitimacy and paternity. In this chapter, as in chapter four, the importance of rewriting colonial history via the medium of fiction is examined. In chapter four, aspects of Edouard Glissant's Le Discours antillais are set in relation to Lacrosil's Demain Jab-Herma (1967) and Condé's Traversée de la mangrove (1989). Finally, Condé's Moi. Tituba, sorciere ... noire de Salem (1986) and Dany Bébel-Gisler's Leonora, L'histoire enfouie de la Guadeloupe (1985) are examined as examples of the Antillean movement towards the créolité recently theorised by Jean Bernabé, Patrick Chamoiseau and Raphaël Confiant, as well as towards the Creole language. What emerges throughout these chapters is a sense both of the way in which the Antillean literary tradition is developing and, more importantly, of the way in which Antillean women writers have come to play a crucial role in that development. What also emerges - and this is perfectly exemplified by Condé's very recent La Migration des coeurs (1995), which is discussed briefly in the afterword to this thesis - is the way in which the work of Antillean women writers has come to provide a vital mode of intervention into a tradition from which it had hitherto been excluded.

In recent years the name of Gustave Guiches has begun to appear more frequently in the pages of works dedicated to the great writers of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It seems, therefore, appropriate that the work of this gifted and versatile writer who enjoyed considerable success and esteem in his life-time, should be made better known.

Cette thèse vise à rendre compte de la perception de la folie au XIXe siècle à travers l’analyse de textes mettant en scène un narrateur fou durant l’âge d’or de l’aliénisme (entre 1830 et 1870). Elle montre dans quelle mesure la littérature expose les différents discours qui la définissent et sert de plateforme d’expression au contre-pouvoir. Dans la mesure où il s’agit de concevoir la folie dans une perspective discursive, l’analyse a bénéficié des travaux de Foucault sur le domaine et contribue à l’avancée de la critique en privilégiant l’analyse littéraire de la représentation du fou et de son discours. Tout d’abord, l’analyse de La Fée aux Miettes de Nodier et de Louis Lambert de Balzac expose le discours aliéniste en rapport avec celui du fou, en considérant ce dernier comme un être non seulement malade, mais aussi sublime et exceptionnel. Le second chapitre montre comment les narrateurs de Mémoires d’un fou de Flaubert et Aurélia de Nerval rejettent la conception dominante de la folie en lui substituant leur propre conception, poétique et sublime, et en s’attaquant au terme lui-même, l’un par la multiplication de ses acceptions, l’autre par son éviction. Enfin, le troisième chapitre analyse Un Martyre dans une maison de fous de Karl-des-Monts, Mémoires d’une aliénée d’Hersilie Rouy et Un Beau-frère d’Hector Malot. Dans ces récits d’individus internés à l’asile, l’analyse dégage les moyens stylistiques par lesquels les narrateurs cherchent à invalider leur diagnostic de folie et dénoncer les défauts de l’aliénisme, tout en préservant leur individualité de la catégorisation médicale. La thèse montre comment la représentation de la folie et le discours du fou en tant que narrateur servent autant à la création littéraire qu’à l’établissement d’une conception de la folie alternative à celle proposée par l’aliénisme.

In several of Michel Houellebecq’s, Marie NDiaye’s, and Michael Haneke’s works there are moments in which attention is drawn to a backdrop of interesting spaces and shifting urban and rural topographies. Rather than viewing the spaces of the narratives as a passive stage upon which the action takes place, or as an exteriorization of the characters’ emotional state, this thesis approaches their works with the perspective that socio-economic change impacts on space, and that this impact can be explored by narrative. This thesis takes three of Houellebecq’s novels, three of NDiaye’s novels, and two of Haneke’s films, and positions them in the context of the economic shift between two dominant modes of production: Fordism and post-Fordism. Post-Fordism can be defined according to four distinguishing features, each of which expresses itself on space in different ways: the first three concern the flexibilization, tertiarization, and feminization of the workforce; and the fourth refers to the global, informatized and geopolitical context in which these processes take place. The analysis in this thesis looks at the way in which the narratives depict these features, with a focus on their spatial attributes. An important part of the research question concerns whether the narratives respond to the precarious and volatile nature of post-Fordism by constructing a nostalgia for a more ‘stable’ past time and space. Houellebecq’s novels critique the impact of post-Fordist spatial change and emotively convey a sense of nostalgia. NDiaye’s novels also critique the impact of post-Fordist spatial change and explore the desire for stability. However, they simultaneously critique that desire, impeding recourse to nostalgia. Haneke’s films articulate the impact of post-Fordist spatial change and the way in which it impedes the city’s ability to be a space of ethical encounter. They present rural idylls and some urban spaces as offering opportunities for ethical relationships and the construction of community. The thesis offers a new way to approach two authors and a filmmaker who are among the most remarkable of the twenty-first century. It demonstrates the value of literary and filmic works in making sense of socio-economic change, as well as the way in which economic transition expresses itself on the French territory and impacts upon experience and interaction occurring within it.

Existing critical response to the question of Baudelaire's influence is confined almost exclusively to isolated assumptions articulated by critics who make little attempt, if any, to substantiate their claims, and who, thereby, show scant regard for the burden of proof associated with the study of causal influence. This study proposes to test the validity of such assumptions, and to formulate a more structured appraisal of the issue than has been made hitherto. To this end, it has sought to assemble pertinent evidence and to assess its value as an indication of a real literary debt. Enquiry is structured accordingly. The thesis begins with an exploration of methodological considerations designed to establish the conceptual basis of enquiry (Part One). It then proceeds to study the diffusion of Baudelaire's work in Spain between 1857 and 1910, and, subsequently, to examine critical reaction to the poet during the same period (Part Two). Finally, it studies the theme of Baudelaire's influence in modernismo with reference to the work of six poets whose work is representative of or which, in one case, prefigures the modernista movement in Spain: Manuel Reina, Rubén Darío, Francisco Villaespesa, the brothers Machado and Juan Ramón Jiménez. The particular objective of each case study varies according to the evidence available and the extent of existing critical response, but basically these objectives are three in number. First, to analyse unequivocal influences. Second, to ascertain, where no conclusive proof of influence exists, the extent to which the possibility of influence may be entertained. Third, to indicate, where pertinent, that the question merits more detailed examination than is possible in a general survey of this kind. The study concludes that although Baudelaire's work was reasonably well-diffused, his direct influence was slight and can be proven far less than existing preemptory claims suggest.