This dissertation focuses on reactions to the French canon in four Francophone novels. The study examines the use of allusions to, quotations from, and parallels with French canonical works in an effort to determine how these canonical works are mobilized in the creation of a new vision. The new visions generated through the relationship with the canonical range from the creation of new philosophical systems, to political action, to the colonial encounter, to the role of literature in the indoctrination of colonized subjects Chapter I examines Cheikh Hamidou Kane's treatment of Rene Descartes and Blaise Pascal in the novel L'Aventure ambigue. Parallels between the thought of Pascal and Kane's Diallobe people are discussed. What is ultimately revealed is how Descartes in particular is used to upset the credibility of the Diallobe ideological system and how his thought accompanies the arrival of a modern philosophical system Chapter II consists of a study of Ousmane Sembene's novel Les Bouts de bois de Dieu, and of his treatment of Andre Malraux's La Condition humaine in that novel. Sembene develops a new vision of the French canon and of the African characters' relationship to it. The chapter goes on to trace the process through which the French canonical text is subordinated to the values and traditions of the politically committed African characters Chapter III examines thematic and structural parallels between Amadou N'Diaye's Assoka ou les derniers fours de Koumbi and Gustave Flaubert's Salammbo. What emerges is a new vision of the colonial encounter in which the French are seen not as a civilizing force but as a tool in the hands of a monotheistic God bringing the rule of Islam to Africa The final chapter analyzes the mobilization of Arthur Rimbaud's Une Saison en enfer and of the modernist poetic tradition by Daniel Maximin in his novel L'Isole soleil. After showing how Rimbaud's prose poem functions as a structural motif, the chapter looks at how Maximin re-evaluates Caribbean literature's relationship with the French texts that have had such an important influence on Caribbean writers / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_23278 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Contributors | Durocher, Dennis Orel, Jr (Author), Sellin, Eric (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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