"Books are books, and can suffer the same fate as men. They too can be killed in battle," wrote Georges Bernanos in Francais, si vous saviez. Bernanos' work thus demands to be read through the optic of his battle against the modern spirit. If the polemical focus is clear in his political writings, criticism of his work has never fully recognized its deployment throughout his novels. It is therefore when Bernanosian fiction renounces any expression of its intention, eluding any dimension of rhetoric---when it is dramatically demobilized---that it is meant to be its most scandalous. / What is the mission of fiction in the Bernanosian project? Based on the tools of reconciled rhetoric of figures and argumentation, the aim of this work is to re-examine the Bernanosian triple paradox of "convincing of the obvious without using words those who share his beliefs" which generates the tension of his project of writing from the end; that is to say finding a language worthy of Christian truth, a language so "true" and so "transparent" that it could be capable of immediate conversion of souls. To fully understand the place of battle in Bernanosian writing, the notion of the end as a creative principle is examined through three main themes: the preludes to the end of time (eschatology), the final struggle for the end (agony) and the end results of writing (aim). / Writing from the end fundamentally implies a return to the origins. The focus of this study will be to demonstrate that the Bernanosian project, through a return to the source of spiritual authority and a re-examination of asceticism, is a central part of the vast enterprise of reappropriation of language defining French literature after the armistice. The search for this language capable not of convincing but of conquering is mainly studied through the voices the author gives his characters who are simple in heart and soul: to his heroes who are "strangers to a certain fencing with language," locked in a perpetual battle with words. The analysis of these heroes' discourse in this "slow tongue" attempts to determine the exact, though improbable, degree to which their babbling voices carry a weight of authority.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.100668 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Ouellette, Julie. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | French |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Département de langue et littérature françaises.) |
| Rights | © Julie Ouellette, 2005 |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002334435, proquestno: AAINR25224, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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