The main objective of this study is to understand how Valery, Pessoa and Jaccottet created or recreated the figure of the master. This figure has truly made its entry into the literary scene in the second half of the nineteenth century, and it contributed to impose a profane and more egalitarian vision of writing. In the writing of the three authors studied, the master is still seen as a strategy to develop a concept of creation, since it allows the writers to define their poetic. It is therefore a matter of maitres a penser (literally "thinking masters") or, better yet, maitres a ecrire ("writing masters"). / For Valery, the desire to make Mallarme his master is best explained by his search for mastery. Even if he is eager to understand what makes Mallarme an exceptional creator, Valery's quest is hindered by Mallarme's refusal to explain his poetic. This resistance seems to encourage Valery to make the creative act a major concern of his work. / By coming up with a "non-existent coterie" made up of imaginary writers, and by recognizing one of them as his own master, Pessoa hopes to fill the gaps in his literary filiation. In the concert of voices that compose his work, it is yet the master himself which undermines the very legitimacy of the master, and that is why Pessoa finally gets rid of his invention. / Finally, Jaccottet creates his masters for the learning they could provide to him: in Jaccottet's unique story, the character of the master fails, allowing the poet to take his distance from assumptions related with the romantic vision of creation; then, a "good master" whose agony is described by poems becomes a model whose wisdom is inseparable from a kind of ignorance. / The presence of the master generates a story elaborated from the writings of these writers: the development of their poetic requires not only the creation of a master figure, but also its removal. Ultimately, the maitre a ecrire is not only one who induces writing in a unique way, but also the one which should be written in order to succeed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.115622 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Léger, Ariane. |
| 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 | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 003131252, proquestno: AAINR66592, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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