Le présent mémoire porte sur la réécriture par Vickie Gendreau, auteure québécoise contemporaine, de deux genres funèbres, le testament littéraire et le tombeau poétique. Dans ses deux récits, Testament et Drama Queens, Gendreau met en scène des narratrices qui s'apprêtent à mourir des suites d'une tumeur au cerveau, ce qui soulève plusieurs questions : de quelle manière tisse-t-elle des rapports intertextuels avec les genres évoqués plus haut ? Comment l'appropriation des genres funèbres permet-elle de vaincre l'angoisse associée à la mort proclamée par les médecins ? Comment penser l'écriture du corps et la fictionalisation de soi à l'aune de deux genres datant de l'époque médiévale ou de la Renaissance ? Dans le premier chapitre, nous nous attardons à la construction par Gendreau du testament littéraire dans sa forme médiévale dans Testament et à la reprise dans Drama Queens d'enjeux testamentaires ; l'héritage, la filiation et la transmission. La réécriture permet l'incorporation dans le récit de l'autodérision et de la mise en scène du devenir-cadavre. Dans le second chapitre, nous explorons le tombeau poétique, tant celui de la Renaissance que celui des poètes modernes. Ce faisant, nous abordons les discours de commémoration du défunt et surtout l'appropriation de la commémoration par les deux narratrices, et ultimement par Vickie Gendreau. / This thesis explores the appropriation by Vickie Gendreau, a contemporary Quebec writer, of two death-laced genres: the literary testament and the poetic crypt. In her two novels, Testament and Drama Queen, Gendreau presents female narrators who are about to succumb to a brain tumor, thereby raising a certain number of questions: what kind of intertexual networks exist between her writing and the aforementioned genres? How does the appropriation of these genres helps conquer the fear of her impending death? How is it possible to rethink the writing of one’s body and self-fictionalization, contemporary motives par excellence, and how they manifest themselves in two genres dating back to the medieval and Renaissance eras? In the first chapter, we examine Gendreau’s construction of the literary testament in its medieval form in her novel Testament, as well as the resurgence in Drama Queen of testamentary issues such as heritage, filiation and transmission. This rewriting allows the incorporation of self-mockery and depiction of a soon-to-be dead body in the narrative. The second chapter studies the poetic crypt as it appears both in Renaissance texts and in modern works. It also focuses on commemoration discourses in remembrance of the deceased, as well as the appropriation of this commemoration by the two narrators and, ultimately, by Vickie Gendreau herself.

Le but de cette recherche qui de déplie en trois parties est de montrer comment l'Histoire en tant que champ cognitif peut, par l'intermédiaire de l'art romanesque, dévoiler des vérités profondes concernant la vie et la pensée contemporaine. Plus précisément, dans le cadre de la première partie, en traçant d'abord brièvement le portrait du roman historique classique, nous présentons sept romans européens de notre époque qui ont comme thématique commune des grands événements historiques. Nous expliquons de quelle époque traite chacun d'eux et quels lieux ils présentent comme lieux d'action de leurs histoires ; nous commentons alors la signification historique majeure du temps et de l'espace choisis. Par la suite, nous mettons l'accent sur les personnages romanesques de notre corpus dans le but de découvrir comment leur appartenance à une époque historique précise influence leur existence et comment surgit conséquemment le besoin de déchiffrer leur monde. De plus, nous nous intéressons à la relation éprouvée entre la puissance de la mémoire, qui hante les personnages se battant pour se réconcilier avec elle, et la construction de leur identité narrative, une identité tant individuelle que collective. Finalement, dans une dernière partie, nous tentons de faire le lien entre le temps de chaque roman et la structure narrative que son écrivain a choisie en suggérant qu'il joue un rôle considérable dans le processus de réception de la littérature. Cette dernière occupera ensuite notre réflexion : nous nous interrogerons donc sur les paramètres qui déterminent la façon dont l'écrivain et le lecteur perçoivent effectivement ces œuvres littéraires.

This thesis is an in-depth study of Shona fiction about the liberation war in Zimbabwe. It looks at the way Zimbabwe’s liberation war is portrayed in Shona fiction and focuses on the factors that shaped writers’ perspectives on that war. It is argued that Shona war fiction writers romanticised the war and in the process simplified and distorted history. The researcher postulates that writers’ perspectives on this liberation war were shaped by factors that include the mood of celebration and euphoria, the dominant ideology of the time, the situations of independence and freedom, and literary competitions. The thesis further raises and illustrates the point that writers produced romances of adventure because they were writing on the theme of war, and if one writes on the theme of war one ends up writing an adventure story. However, it is also acknowledged that because authors were writing on a historical event they could not ignore history completely. Some aspects of history are incorporated into the fiction, thereby retaining a semblance of historical realism. The post-independence period is also seen as a time of cultural revival and this is considered as the reason behind the authors’ tendency to celebrate Shona traditional institutions and culture. The celebration of Shona traditional religion and culture introduced into the fiction the element of the supernatural that strengthened the romance aspect of the novels. Shona war fiction writers also perpetuate female stereotyping. Female characters are depicted as everything except guerrilla fighters. It is argued that there are no female characters that play roles of guerrilla fighters because during the actual war women were not visible at the war front, fighting. The thesis argues that men, who were pioneers of the guerrilla war and writers of the war stories, excluded women from liberation war discourse and ultimately from literary discourse as well. A few writers who comment on the quality of Zimbabwe’s independence and freedom show the disillusionment and despair of the peasants and ex-combatants as they struggled to settle down and recover from the war. / African Languages / D.Litt. et Phil.

Le but de cette recherche qui de déplie en trois parties est de montrer comment l’Histoire en tant que champ cognitif peut, par l’intermédiaire de l’art romanesque, dévoiler des vérités profondes concernant la vie et la pensée contemporaine. Plus précisément, dans le cadre de la première partie, en traçant d’abord brièvement le portrait du roman historique classique, nous présentons sept romans européens de notre époque qui ont comme thématique commune des grands événements historiques. Nous expliquons de quelle époque traite chacun d’eux et quels lieux ils présentent comme lieux d’action de leurs histoires ; nous commentons alors la signification historique majeure du temps et de l’espace choisis. Par la suite, nous mettons l’accent sur les personnages romanesques de notre corpus dans le but de découvrir comment leur appartenance à une époque historique précise influence leur existence et comment surgit conséquemment le besoin de déchiffrer leur monde. De plus, nous nous intéressons à la relation éprouvée entre la puissance de la mémoire, qui hante les personnages se battant pour se réconcilier avec elle, et la construction de leur identité narrative, une identité tant individuelle que collective. Finalement, dans une dernière partie, nous tentons de faire le lien entre le temps de chaque roman et la structure narrative que son écrivain a choisie en suggérant qu’il joue un rôle considérable dans le processus de réception de la littérature. Cette dernière occupera ensuite notre réflexion : nous nous interrogerons donc sur les paramètres qui déterminent la façon dont l’écrivain et le lecteur perçoivent effectivement ces œuvres littéraires. / The purpose of this research, divided in three parts, is to show how History, as cognitive field, can reveal deep truths of contemporary life and thought through the art of novel. More precisely, in the first part, after briefly drawing the portrait of classic historical novel, we present seven modern novels that have as common ground important historical facts. We explain which time each novel deals with and which places it presents as sites of action of its story. We comment, as well, on the considerable historical meaning of the chosen times and places. Afterwards, we focus on the fictional characters of our corpus so as to discover how their belonging to a precise historical time influences their existence and how, consequently, the need to fathom out their world is provoked. Furthermore, we are interested in the proven relation between the power of memory that haunts the characters who are fighting so as to be reconciled with it and the construction of narrative identity, equally individual and collective. Finally, in the last part, we try to show the connection between the time of each novel and the narrative structure that each writer has chosen for it by suggesting the importance of its role in the process of the literary reception. The latter will subsequently make us wonder about the parameters that determine the way the writer and the reader receive effectively these literary works.

This thesis is an in-depth study of Shona fiction about the liberation war in Zimbabwe. It looks at the way Zimbabwe’s liberation war is portrayed in Shona fiction and focuses on the factors that shaped writers’ perspectives on that war. It is argued that Shona war fiction writers romanticised the war and in the process simplified and distorted history. The researcher postulates that writers’ perspectives on this liberation war were shaped by factors that include the mood of celebration and euphoria, the dominant ideology of the time, the situations of independence and freedom, and literary competitions. The thesis further raises and illustrates the point that writers produced romances of adventure because they were writing on the theme of war, and if one writes on the theme of war one ends up writing an adventure story. However, it is also acknowledged that because authors were writing on a historical event they could not ignore history completely. Some aspects of history are incorporated into the fiction, thereby retaining a semblance of historical realism. The post-independence period is also seen as a time of cultural revival and this is considered as the reason behind the authors’ tendency to celebrate Shona traditional institutions and culture. The celebration of Shona traditional religion and culture introduced into the fiction the element of the supernatural that strengthened the romance aspect of the novels. Shona war fiction writers also perpetuate female stereotyping. Female characters are depicted as everything except guerrilla fighters. It is argued that there are no female characters that play roles of guerrilla fighters because during the actual war women were not visible at the war front, fighting. The thesis argues that men, who were pioneers of the guerrilla war and writers of the war stories, excluded women from liberation war discourse and ultimately from literary discourse as well. A few writers who comment on the quality of Zimbabwe’s independence and freedom show the disillusionment and despair of the peasants and ex-combatants as they struggled to settle down and recover from the war. / African Languages / D.Litt. et Phil.

This study is comprised of two parts: an unauthorised biography of the South African musician David Kramer, as well as a reflective look at the process of writing this biography. In this regard the following aspects were looked at closely: finding an appropriate style, biography versus propaganda, conjecturing, the bilingual nature of the text, problems of research, ethics, influences, make-believe, approach to the subject, intertextuality, and fictionalisation. The central question of the biography is to highlight the success of a fellow Worcester (the author’s hometown) boy. The central research questions of the thesis are the fictionalisation of the nonfiction text, intertextuality, and the question of a text written in both English and Afrikaans. With regard to the aforementioned fictionalisation, a biographical text is classified as “nonfiction”, because it deals with a real person and real events. However, a text such as David Kramer – an unauthorised biography presents an alternative perspective, in that the narrative often moves into fiction, or “creative nonfiction”. Written texts are traditionally divided into two fields: fiction or nonfiction. Nonfiction is deemed to be fact, truth, whereas fiction is the fruit of an author’s imagination. But perhaps the notion of truth versus untruth is too limited, and one should include the words “objectivity” and “subjectivity”. Some texts incorporate both elements, be they newspaper editorials which are mostly opinion, advertisements which are highly subjective, or biographies such as Taraborrelli’s Madonna – An Intimate Biography, which often reads as a novel. This doctoral thesis looks at David Kramer – an unauthorised biography, which is at times “faction”, to illuminate the sections where the text fell somewhere between fiction or nonfiction. In attempting this exercise, intertextuality was useful in two ways. Firstly, to ground the text in a reality the reader could believe, as it brought “real” things to the text, such as song lyrics, photographs, et cetera, all things which brought some credibility to the truth of the text, and secondly to place the events being described in a certain timeframe. The use of English and Afrikaans in the biography was to reflect that Kramer uses both languages in his songs, and furthermore, to give an idea of the South Africa at the time of Kramer’s early success: the divides of English/Afrikaans, white/black, liberal/conservative. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Unit for Creative Writing / Unrestricted

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