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La nouvelle Babel : langage, identite et morale dans les oevres de Emil Cioran, Milan Kundera et Andrei Makine

The subject of this thesis is an examination of the acquisition in language of a new country for three Eastern European writers exiled in France. For such writers, art and life become inseparable: just as the experience of geographical displacement liberates the writer so it liberates his language. This new language becomes a field of experimentation, in which the conflicts that precipitated exile are resolved. Departure necessitates the abandonment of the mother tongue: for Cioran, Romanian; for Kundera, Czech; for Makine, Russian. For each of these three writers, studied in this thesis, the adoption of French as the language of literary expression was a decisive act. Geographically and spiritually he and his text are redefined. Separated from familiar landmarks, each finds a new terrain in the language of the creative text, a place, a private space, in which to express the realities of his new self. On the one hand this new paradigm is the expression of a rejection of a past and a tradition; on the other hand it is essential in the process of coming to self-understanding. For Cioran, Kundera and Makine the French language provides a foil to their own ruptured, fragmented, traumatised or guilt-ridden native identities. In each case the adoption of French with its concomitant stereotypical qualities and values constitutes a dialectical process of coming to a clearer sense of self.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/221216
Date January 2006
CreatorsRey, Catherine,
PublisherUniversity of Western Australia. School of Humanities, University of Western Australia. European Languages and Studies Discipline Group
Source SetsAustraliasian Digital Theses Program
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
RightsCopyright Catherine Rey, http://www.itpo.uwa.edu.au/UWA-Computer-And-Software-Use-Regulations.html

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