An Obscure Man by Marguerite Yourcenar is the novelist's heritage to posterity. By Yourcenar's own admission, it constitutes her spiritual and literary testament. In this novel, her poetics of self-effacement reaches its culminating point, where Nathanael is portrayed as a protagonist free of any constraints because he exhibits no desire or ambition. The author paints a character who incarnates a constant passive state. But by doing so, one could argue that it is the work of fiction itself that is put into question, as Nathanael's triviality and insignificance --- hence his exemplary conduct --- represents a great threat to the novel as an ontological entity with its own set of rules. And so we ask: for a writer whose aesthetics are closely tied to ethics, particularly to those higher values of lucidity and humility peculiar to Yourcenar's philosophy, does the novel still have a claim to existence? In other words, if there is no illusion, what is left of the novel?

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Mordecaui S. Rubin. Dissertation Committee: Maxine Greene. Bibliography: leaves 148-151.

Thesis (doctoral)--Université de Paris VII-Denis Diderot, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 572-604) and index.

Diss.--Zurich--Faculté des lettres, 1987. / Bibliogr. p. 205-211.

Th. doct.--Romanska institutionen--Uppsala--Université d'Uppsala, 1986.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Université Paris IV. / Two errata sheets inserted. Includes bibliographical references (p. [467]-533).

Thesis (doctoral)--Université de Paris VII-Denis Diderot, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 572-604) and index.

Th. 3e cycle--Litt. fr.--Paris 3, 1977.

No description available.

Texte remanié de : Thèse de doctorat : Littérature française : Paris 4 : 2000. / Bibliogr. p. 325-341. Notes bibliogr.