Violette Leduc. An existentialist woman-writer in France The aim of this diploma thesis is to describe and evaluate the work of French writer Violette Leduc from the point of view of existentialism, which she is considered to be a representative of. There is an outline of the basic context of the writer's life and work at the beginning and description of the genre of autobiography follows. The main body of the work includes association of her life with existentialism (she took an active part in existentialists' literary group and she kept a close personal relationship with some of the representatives of this movement: Sartre, Beauvoir, Camus); and with literature in terms of intertextuality (internal coherence and inspiration of her work); and with themes of her work as such and her perception of them. Both perspectives are interconnected because Leduc's work is mainly autobiographical. The core purpose of the work is to investigate the reflection of ontological and ethical demands of existentialism in the author's elaboration of authentic experience. The interpretative part deals with her essential trilogy: : La Bâtarde, La Folie en Tête, La Chasse à l'Amour. Both the typical features of existentialism and the features of Leduc's work that go beyond it are explained on the basis of these three texts. The...

Essa dissertação percorre a obra da escritora francesa, Violette Leduc, elaborando uma reflexão crítica a partir das noções de performatividade e performance, tal como conceituadas por Judith Butler. O núcleo da investigação proposta é a maneira como tais noções operam na obra leduciana, sobretudo sua trilogia autobiográfica, composta pelos livros La bâtarde, La folie en tête e La chasse à lamour. A partir da lente da crítica feminista, com especial atenção aos estudos queer (sem, no entanto, esquecer as vertentes críticas que os precedem), a análise da obra de Leduc torna-se, também, uma discussão sobre poder, gêneros, sexualidades e potências da linguagem literária. As narradoras-personagens dos livros de Leduc constantemente se debruçam sobre a própria obra da autora e a tomam para si: reescrevem os livros publicados como ficcionais, denunciam suas estratégias criativas, falam sobre os impasses do exercício da escrita, desestabilizam a obra de Violette Leduc, transformando-a constantemente. Para além disso, há na literatura leduciana um questionamento recorrente das estruturas sociais, culturais e políticas que regulam os gêneros, os desejos e as práticas sexuais. Tanto a lesbiandade, a bissexualidade, a heterossexualidade, a fluidez dos desejos e das possibilidades para sua práxis quanto as feminilidades e masculinidades, são temas narrados e explorados ao longo de toda a trilogia autobiográfica e também dos romances. Tais indagações culminam em transformações na própria escrita literária, revelando como característica central da literatura leduciana a relação simbiótica entre criação (performance) e citação (performatividade). / The following dissertation explores the work of french writer, Violette Leduc through Judith Butlers definition for both gender performativity and performance notions. The investigations core is the part such notions play in Leducs work, especially her autobiographical trilogy, which comprehends the novels La bâtarde, La folie en tête and La chasse à lamour. This research views Leducs work from the feminist criticism perspective, with special attention to queer studies (but without losing account of the critical thinking that preceded it). The result is an literary analysis that transforms into a discussion of various themes, such as power, genders, sexualities and the different potentials for literary language. Leducs autobiographical protagonist-narrators constantly address Leducs own literary work and claim their ownership over it: they rewrite Leducs fiction and also denounce their creative strategies as well as her impasses with literary writing. The result is a narrator that destabilizes Violette Leducs work, persistently transforming it. Beyond that, in the leducian literature there is a recurrent interrogation of social, political and cultural structures that regulate genders, desires and sexual practices. Lesbianhood, bissexuality, heterossexuality, feminility and masculinity as well as desire and its practical potentialities are themes explored throughout the entire autobiographical trilogy and also in the fictional work. Such inquiries result in transformations on the very literary writing, revealing a key aspect of Leducs literature: the symbiotic relationship established between creation (performance) and citation (performativity).

Essa dissertação percorre a obra da escritora francesa, Violette Leduc, elaborando uma reflexão crítica a partir das noções de performatividade e performance, tal como conceituadas por Judith Butler. O núcleo da investigação proposta é a maneira como tais noções operam na obra leduciana, sobretudo sua trilogia autobiográfica, composta pelos livros La bâtarde, La folie en tête e La chasse à lamour. A partir da lente da crítica feminista, com especial atenção aos estudos queer (sem, no entanto, esquecer as vertentes críticas que os precedem), a análise da obra de Leduc torna-se, também, uma discussão sobre poder, gêneros, sexualidades e potências da linguagem literária. As narradoras-personagens dos livros de Leduc constantemente se debruçam sobre a própria obra da autora e a tomam para si: reescrevem os livros publicados como ficcionais, denunciam suas estratégias criativas, falam sobre os impasses do exercício da escrita, desestabilizam a obra de Violette Leduc, transformando-a constantemente. Para além disso, há na literatura leduciana um questionamento recorrente das estruturas sociais, culturais e políticas que regulam os gêneros, os desejos e as práticas sexuais. Tanto a lesbiandade, a bissexualidade, a heterossexualidade, a fluidez dos desejos e das possibilidades para sua práxis quanto as feminilidades e masculinidades, são temas narrados e explorados ao longo de toda a trilogia autobiográfica e também dos romances. Tais indagações culminam em transformações na própria escrita literária, revelando como característica central da literatura leduciana a relação simbiótica entre criação (performance) e citação (performatividade). / The following dissertation explores the work of french writer, Violette Leduc through Judith Butlers definition for both gender performativity and performance notions. The investigations core is the part such notions play in Leducs work, especially her autobiographical trilogy, which comprehends the novels La bâtarde, La folie en tête and La chasse à lamour. This research views Leducs work from the feminist criticism perspective, with special attention to queer studies (but without losing account of the critical thinking that preceded it). The result is an literary analysis that transforms into a discussion of various themes, such as power, genders, sexualities and the different potentials for literary language. Leducs autobiographical protagonist-narrators constantly address Leducs own literary work and claim their ownership over it: they rewrite Leducs fiction and also denounce their creative strategies as well as her impasses with literary writing. The result is a narrator that destabilizes Violette Leducs work, persistently transforming it. Beyond that, in the leducian literature there is a recurrent interrogation of social, political and cultural structures that regulate genders, desires and sexual practices. Lesbianhood, bissexuality, heterossexuality, feminility and masculinity as well as desire and its practical potentialities are themes explored throughout the entire autobiographical trilogy and also in the fictional work. Such inquiries result in transformations on the very literary writing, revealing a key aspect of Leducs literature: the symbiotic relationship established between creation (performance) and citation (performativity).

La thèse rend compte d’une tentative de repenser le rapport entre la pudeur et la littérature : non pas la pudeur dans la littérature ou une littérature de la pudeur mais le geste littéraire comme un geste de pudeur. Pour cela, la première partie de la thèse s’emploie à découvrir la pudeur (en français, en Occident), c’est-à-dire à tomber le voile des discours dogmatiques qui forgèrent le mythe d’une « pudeur féminine » depuis l’interprétation canonique de l’épisode biblique du « péché originel », pour mettre en évidence la nudité textuelle du sujet auctorial (du latin augeo qui signifie « augmenter » et qui donne le nom d’« auteur » en français). L’hypothèse est que sous le couvert d’une interdiction sexuelle et du voile posé sur le « féminin », la « pudeur féminine » dissimule une complexité générique : il s’agit de l’articulation problématique dont la littérature transporterait le secret entre les genres biologiques (humain-animal), les genres grammaticaux (masculin-féminin) et les genres du discours (religieux ou philosophique-littéraire). Dans une deuxième partie, la thèse examine les effets de la pudeur auctoriale à partir d’un corpus constitué de textes de Marguerite Duras et de Violette Leduc relevant des genres littéraires de l’intime mais dont la reprise fictionnelle est assumée par les auteurs : l’autobiographie (La Bâtarde et, dans une certaine mesure, L’Amant de la Chine du Nord), le journal et la lettre (Aurélia Steiner et L’Affamée). Cette étude est sous-tendue par deux axes de lecture qui mettent en évidence la déconstruction de « l’intérieur » à laquelle œuvre la pudeur : une responsabilité poétique et une franchise littéraire. / This thesis is an attempt to rethink the relationship between pudeur (a sense of shame) and literature : it is not about shame in literature or about the literature of modesty but about the literary act as an act of pudeur. The first part of the thesis is a discovery of modesty (in French, in the occident) ; in other words it is a dropping of the veil of the discourses which, since the canonical interpretations of « original sin » in the Bible, have forged the myth of a « female modesty ». This will highlight the textual nudity of the auctorial subject (« auctorial » : from the latin augere, meaning « to increase » which is at the root of the word for « author »). Under a covert sexual interdiction and a veil wrapped round the « feminine », female modesty dissimulates a generic complexity : the problematic articulation between species (human-animal), genders (male-female), and genres (religious or philosophical-literary) of which literature might hold the secret. In its second part the thesis examines the effects of pudeur auctoriale as revealed in a series of texts by Marguerite Duras and Violette Leduc. Among the intimate genres that these authors revisit in fiction there are : the autobiography (La Bâtarde and, to a certain extent L’Amant de la Chine du Nord), the diary and correspondence (Aurélia Steiner and L’Affamée). This study underlines the deconstruction from the inside towards which pudeur tends : a poetic responsibility and a literary honesty.

Cette thèse tente d’analyser comment les œuvres de Violette Leduc ont remis en cause, de façon avant-gardiste, les normes de sexe, de genre et de sexualité dans l’écriture de fiction. Différentes méthodes critiques sollicitées durant le travail permettent de mettre au jour le lien intime et corporel qu’entretient Violette Leduc avec ses œuvres. Ces méthodes permettent également d’entrevoir une poétique décalée, décentrée, qui déconstruit les genres littéraires et offre de nouveaux points de vue sur le monde. Il s’agit par conséquent de montrer dans ce travail que c’est à travers la poétique et non la rhétorique que l’auteure façonne, à la façon de l’artisan, une résistance à la norme. Trois concepts majeurs servent d’outils critiques à l’étude des textes : la performativité, la déconstruction et la limite toujours floue entre réalité et fiction. Ces outils, confrontés aux trois thèmes principaux de la corporéité, de la sexualité et de l’infra-ordinaire qui sont analysés de près dans ces recherches, remettent en question les désignations de « sexe », de « genre » et de « sexualité ». La position du lecteur se voit elle-même décentrée, afin qu’il puisse accéder aux « trésors à prendre » du texte. Il en résulte, conséquemment, la nécessité de reconsidérer les processus de la poétique et les impacts philosophiques, sociologiques et politiques de ces textes. / In this thesis we have tried to analyze how the works of Violette Leduc challenged, in an avant-garde manner, the norms of sex, gender and sexuality in fictional writing. Various critical methods have helped reveal the physical and intimate relationships between Violette Leduc and her own body of work. They have also helped foresee a shifting, off-centered poetics that deconstructs the literary genres and offers alternative views of the world. Hence we have aimed at displaying how the writer crafted, crafts(wo)manlike, a resistance to norms through poetics rather than rhetoric. Three main concepts have been used as critical tools for text analysis : performativity, deconstruction, and an ever-blurred limit between reality and fiction. Confronted to the three main themes of corporeity, sexuality and infra-ordinary – which are thoroughly examined in this work – these tools help questioning the very notions of sex, gender and sexuality. The reader himself is urged to shift off-center in order to get access to the texts’ « treasures to-be-taken ». It has appeared necessary, then, to reconsider the process of poetics and the philosophical, sociological and political impact of these texts.

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La littérature entretient un rapport à la mode, non seulement dans ses formes qui sont en dialogue avec l’époque, mais aussi dans ses sujets où la mode devient partie prenante du récit. L’avènement du prêt-à-porter en tant qu’« événement majeur » de l’après-guerre (Grau, 2007) remet en conflit les termes d’élégance et d’émancipation. La représentation de la femme du XXe siècle change ainsi au gré des tendances. Alors que le vêtement informe de moins en moins sur les repères sociaux culturels (il se neutralise et s’universalise), l’idéal féminin est fortement requestionné entre autres par les femmes de lettres françaises, témoins privilégiés de cette époque. Simone de Beauvoir et Violette Leduc rédigent deux ouvrages imprégnés de ce profond questionnement du soi féminin intellectuel et de la performance du genre. Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée (Simone de Beauvoir, 1958) et La Bâtarde (Violette Leduc, 1964) en tant que romans d’apprentissage écrits par des femmes dans la France de l’après-guerre mettent de l’avant ce rapport à la mode comme construction du genre ; construction qui entre cependant en conflit avec la représentation de la femme intellectuelle de l’époque. La perception du genre chez Beauvoir et Leduc se manifeste alors et surtout à travers une tension relevée entre mode (exhibition de la féminité) et intellectualisme (exhibition de la neutralité) ; tension perceptible à travers les alternances du dit et du non-dit. Est-il possible de performer un genre féminin intellectuel ? Et de quelle manière cette performance se manifeste-t-elle ? Pour répondre à cette problématique, les études menées sur le Bildungsroman féminin (Labovitz, 1986 ; Šnircová, 2015) nous permettront d’observer le phénomène de l’apprentissage d’un idéal de la féminité. L’on relèvera par la suite à l’aide d’études entreprises sur la mode et son influence (Baudot, 1999 ; Craik, 1994 ; Evans, 1999) de même qu’à travers les concepts de performance et de performativité (Féral, 2013 ; Kollnitz et Pecorari, 2021), les diverses tentatives de réappropriation par les deux intellectuelles à l’étude de cet idéal féminin véhiculé. Enfin, il s’agira de révéler, au regard des études sur les identités sexuelles (Butler, 1999 ; Lipovetsky, 2006), la présence d’un rapport inédit et complexe entre la femme intellectuelle du XXe siècle et le genre. / Literature maintains a relationship with fashion not only through its forms, which are in conversation with the era, but also through its subjects as fashion becomes a necessary part of the narrative. The advent of ready-to-wear clothing as a “major event” of the post-war period (Grau, 2007) brings the terms “elegance” and “emancipation” into conflict. The representation of the 20th century woman thus changes according to trends. While the garment is losing its impact on cultural social landmarks⁠ by becoming neutral and universal⁠, French women of letters—the privileged witnesses of this era—are strongly questioning the conveyed feminine ideal. Two of them, Simone de Beauvoir and Violette Leduc, wrote important novels challenging the notions of the female intellectual self and gender performance: Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée (Simone de Beauvoir, 1958) and La Bâtarde (Violette Leduc, 1964). These two Bildungsroman written in post-war France make the case for fashion as an active component in gender construction; a construction that, however, conflicts with the representation of the female intellectual at the time. Indeed, Beauvoir and Leduc’s perception of gender manifests through a tension between fashion (the exhibition of femininity) and intellectualism (the exhibition of neutrality); a tension noticeable through the alternations of the verbal and the non-verbal. Therefore, is it possible to perform a feminine intellectual gender? If so, how does this performance manifest? To answer these questions, we will first look into studies on the female Bildungsroman (Labovitz, 1986; Šnircová, 2015); this will help us understand how an ideal of femininity is not simply an inherent phenomenon but one that is learnt. Then, we will focus on fashion studies (Baudot, 1999; Craik, 1994; Evans, 1999) and the concepts of performance and performativity (Féral, 2013 ; Kollnitz et Pecorari, 2021); this will allow us to show the various attempts at reappropriation of the feminine ideal conveyed to the two intellectuals considered in this thesis. Finally, we will turn to gender studies (Butler, 1999; Lipovetsky, 2006) to reveal the presence of an unprecedented and complex relation between the intellectual woman of the 20th century and gender.