This dissertation examines lesbian and queer desire in texts in Catalan and Spanish written in Barcelona, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires from the 1960s to the present. In the texts, desire includes but is not limited to the erotic; it encompasses issues of queer textuality, relationality, and literary transmission. I focus on the works of three authors who have spent the majority of their lives in Barcelona. However, the city appears almost incidentally in their works; the genealogies that the authors trace are transnational. The texts combine literal movement (through exile or diaspora) and a metaphorical sense of being “out of place” that prompts writers to take refuge in writing. I demonstrate that despite depicting affinities beyond the family and nation, the works reveal the persistence of familial and national ties, albeit in spectral or queer ways. Rather than tracing continuous lines of descent that emphasise origins, the works are principally concerned with futurity and fragmentation, as in Michel Foucault’s reading of genealogy. Chapter One on Maria-Mercè Marçal’s La passió segons Renée Vivien (1994) traces a literary genealogy from Sappho to Renée Vivien in fin de siècle Paris to Marçal. The novel represents a merging of literary desire and erotic desire; Marçal’s search for symbolic mothers turns out to be a search for symbolic lovers that is oriented towards the present and future. In Chapter Two, I posit that in Cristina Peri Rossi’s La nave de los locos (1984) “happiness” consists of being open to chance and unpredictability unlike in conventional “happy” scripts in which a valuable life is believed to consist of (heterosexual) marriage, children, and property ownership. In Part II I argue that through fragmentation, allegory, and ambiguity, Peri Rossi’s El libro de mis primos (1969) contests authoritarian discourse without itself becoming a site of hegemonic meaning. In inviting the reader’s collaboration, it ensures authorial legacy. Part I of Chapter Three is an analysis of the temporality of obsession in Flavia Company’s Querida Nélida (1988). I propose that obsession and melancholia may point to a utopian future rather than signalling an entrapment in the past. My study of Melalcor (2000) in Part II suggests that queer forms of relationality that are not centred on procreation and monogamy offer ethical models of sociality. Part III focusses on Company’s return to biological family in Volver antes que ir (2012) and Por mis muertos (2014). The resurgence in these texts of family members who have died signals that just as the queer haunts the family, the family haunts the queer.

Le film d’opéra correspond à la rencontre de deux formes d’art ayant chacune ses propres règles de mise en scène. Il nécessite de concilier les exigences de l’opéra et celles du cinéma, mais prétend aussi favoriser leur enrichissement mutuel. Notre réflexion porte sur la pertinence, du point de vue créatif, de cette rencontre. Elle vise à mettre en évidence les risques, les enjeux et les intérêts artistiques du film d’opéra. Le corpus revêt une dimension franco-italienne : il se compose de cinq films produits par Daniel Toscan du Plantier (Don Giovanni de Joseph Losey, Carmen de Francesco Rosi, La Bohème de Luigi Comencini, Madame Butterfly de Frédéric Mitterrand, Tosca de Benoît Jacquot) et de deux autres, non produits par lui : La Traviata et Otello de Franco Zeffirelli, qui appartiennent à cette même « vague » du film d’opéra. L’étude s’intéresse tout d’abord à la politique culturelle du producteur Daniel Toscan du Plantier, grâce à qui ce genre cinématographique s’est développé de façon significative dans les années 1980, afin de définir le contexte de création de ses films, de comprendre son engagement en faveur de ce genre artistique et son intérêt tout particulier pour la culture italienne. Notre analyse tend par la suite à évaluer les difficultés techniques ainsi que les libertés créatives qu’engendre le passage à l’écran. L’écriture cinématographique de l’opéra implique des concessions sur le plan de la réalisation et nécessite un positionnement entre les deux esthétiques, mais elle permet aussi une lecture nouvelle et originale de l’opéra. Nous évaluons à la fois les exigences résultant de l’articulation opéra-cinéma et les solutions apportées par les réalisateurs pour répondre à ces contraintes, bien souvent musicales. La réflexion se concentre dans la seconde partie sur l’aboutissement de cette union, tout d’abord à travers l’analyse de l’interprétation visuelle de la musique fournie par les réalisateurs pour chacun des films du corpus, selon une approche thématique. Elle montre comment l’image mobile transcrit la musique, comment l’écriture cinématographique traduit visuellement la partition et peut accroître la dimension émotive. Enfin, elle s’intéresse à la réception de ces films en France et en Italie, en vue de mesurer l’accueil reçu par chacun auprès de la critique, partagée entre démocratisation de l’opéra et vulgarisation de l’art lyrique. / The "opera film" corresponds to the encounter between two art forms envolving specific staging rules. It combines the requirements of opera and cinema alike whilst endeavouring to promote their mutual enrichment. In this dissertation I analyse the relevance of this encounter from a creative point of view. I intend to highlight the risks, stakes and artistic appropriateness of the opera film. The body of works has a Franco-italian dimension: it includes five films produced by Daniel Toscan du Plantier (Joseph Losey's Don Giovanni, Francesco Rosi's Carmen, Luigi Comencini's La Bohème, Frédéric Mitterrand's Madama Butterfly and Benoît Jacquot's Tosca) as well as two other films which he did not produced: La Traviata and Otello, by Franco Zeffirelli, also belong to this opera film "wave". First of all, I examine Daniel Toscan du Plantier's cultural policy as a producer. Indeed, it was thanks to him that this cinematic genre flourished significantly in the 1980s. I aim to define the creative context of these films and to understand his commitment towards their promotion as well as his genuine interest for Italian culture. I then move on to analysing the technical difficulties as well as the creative licence which results from screen adaptation. On the one hand, the cinematographic writing of opera implies concessions in staging and requires a position be taken in respect of aesthetics, cinematographic and opera. On the other hand, it also triggers a new and original reading of opera. I assess the requirements which result from the opera-cinema articulation and the solutions, often musical, proposed by films directors confronted to these constraints. In Part II I focus on the achievements of this union, first by thematically analysing each director's the visual interpretation of music provided in the films included in the body of works. I argue that the moving image transcribes music, that cinematographic writing translates the music score visually and that it can enhance the emotional dimension. Finally, I examine the response to these films in France and in Italy, especially through the critics divided between the democratisation of opera and the vulgarisation of lyric art.