23 research outputs found
Poems from the interval: violence in Ted Hughesâs animal still-lifes
Dans les « natures mourantes » du poĂšte Ted Hughes, la pulsion scopique telle quâelle se manifeste dans les natures mortes traditionnelles sâinverse en soumettant l'Ćil humain au regard pĂ©trifiant de la bĂȘte morte ou Ă lâagonie. Ce faisant, le texte sâouvre pour opĂ©rer la genĂšse dâune crĂ©ature hybride, crĂ©ature des intervalles oĂč se croisent, se mĂ©tissent langage humain et corps animal en un va-et-vient entre la vie et la mort, dans une dimension semblable au bardo â terme tibĂ©tain dĂ©signant cet « intervalle entre deux Ă©tats » oĂč le chaman en transe est violemment mis Ă mort par un animal dĂ©moniaque afin de renaĂźtre sous une nouvelle forme. Il semblerait ainsi que les natures mourantes issues de ces intervalles aient Ă©tĂ© conçues par Ted Hughes pour lâintervalle que nous traversons, cette Ăšre charniĂšre nommĂ©e AnthropocĂšne et dans laquelle notre civilisation menace de sâautodĂ©truire : ces poĂšmes mettent en Ćuvre une transformation profonde de notre relation aux animaux, Ă la nature, comme autant de signes dâalerte avant le point de non-retour. Le prĂ©sent article a pour but dâanalyser le triple processus â inversion de la pulsion scopique, croisement humain-animal, mort rĂ©gĂ©nĂ©ratrice â par lâĂ©tude de trois natures mourantes parmi les plus violentes de Ted Hughes : « Pike », « The Jaguar » et « Second Glance at a Jaguar ».In his verbal still-lifes, Ted Hughes reverses the traditional dynamics of scopophilia by putting the human eye under the dying beastâs petrifying gaze. So doing, the poem entwines human and animal into an interval creature entangling human language and animal body, thriving between life and death, in a dimension akin to the bardoâin Tibetan, the âinterval between two statesâ where the shaman is violently put to death by an animal demon to be resurrected as a new lifeform. Hence Hughesâs still-lifes are not only from the interval, but also for the interval period we are going throughâthe pivotal era known as the Anthropocene, and whose denouement could be self-destructive for our civilizationâ: they propose profound transformations in our relationship to nature before we reach the point of no return. This paper will illustrate the triple process (reversed scopophilia, human-animal entanglement, dying as a regenerating experience) through three of Ted Hughesâs most violent animal still-lifes: âPike,â âThe Jaguarâ and âSecond Glance at a Jaguar.
The Death Instinct and the Recovery of Psychical Integrity in the Bestiary of Women in Love
International audiencePlan : 1- âAllotropiesâ: the âvicissitudesâ of the death instinct 2- Manâs own inhumanity: civilization as a wolf-machine 3- The âequilibrizingâ bestiary 4- Works Cite
Angoisses et plaisirs de la lecture dans lâunivers romanesque dâIris Murdoch
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âEstuary of the deadâ : lâimaginaire de la mort dans la poĂ©sie de Ted Hughes
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Obscene beasts: the stage behind the scenes in A Midsummer Nightâs Dream / BĂȘtes obscĂšnes : la scĂšne cachĂ©e du Songe dâune Nuit dâEtĂ©
International audienceMimesis, the art of imitating the real world on the stage, is all the more difficult if this real world consists of a beastâa wild, dangerous, supposedly âobsceneâ animal in the Latin sense: literally off-stage. Such is the challenge faced by the amateur company of mechanicals who are producing the love tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, A Midsummer Nightâs Dreamâs play within the play featuring a fearful lion. For all the efforts the mechanicals have engaged in the project, their rendition of the lion is such a failure that it has the on-stage spectators roar with laughter. This is a fairly convincing anticipation of Gaston Bachelardâs statement in Water and Dreams, âa ghost [a beast in this particular instance] complacently described loses its effect.â Thus, through the mechanicalsâ theatrical misadventure, Shakespeare ironically includes in A Midsummer Nightâs Dream a âhow-not-toâ guide for mimesis, a reversed mise en abyme of his own challenging conception of a play teeming with an unstageable and infinite variety of creatures great and small, wild and tame, familiar and fantastical, its presence all the more haunting as it is never staged strictly speaking. Neither staged nor completely off-scene, the bestiary of A Midsummer Nightâs Dream, emblematized by the âenamel skinâ shed âthereâ by the elusive âsnakeâ (2.1.254), is featured on a subliminal and simultaneous scene, a sub-stage as it were, an Other Scene, involving humankind in a liminal confrontation with its own animality. This paper aims to explore the strategiesâwhether rooted in the Elizabethan worldview, or amazingly modernâthrough which Shakespeare stages this inward confrontation, while involving us in vertiginous reflexions on the theatre.Mettre en scĂšne une bĂȘte sauvage, « ob-scĂšne » au sens latin (hors scĂšne, rejetĂ©e comme irreprĂ©sentable) est une pĂ©rilleuse entreprise. Câest pourtant le dĂ©fi que se lance une troupe dâamateurs pour jouer devant la cour de ThĂ©sĂ©e, duc dâAthĂšnes, la tragĂ©die grĂ©co-romaine de Pyrame et ThisbĂ©, piĂšce dans la piĂšce du Songe dâune nuit dâĂ©tĂ©, dont une scĂšne clĂ© nĂ©cessite lâapparition dâun lion fĂ©roce. HĂ©las ! En dĂ©pit du grand soin portĂ© par la troupe aux rĂ©pĂ©titions et Ă la fabrication des costumes, la reprĂ©sentation, et plus particuliĂšrement la scĂšne du fauve, est un dĂ©sastre qui fait rugir de rire lâassistance. Il sâagit lĂ dâune dĂ©monstration prophĂ©tique de ce que Bachelard Ă©crira bien plus tard dans LâEau et les rĂȘves: « Un fantĂŽme [en lâoccurrence un fauve] quâon dĂ©crit avec complaisance est un [fauve] qui cesse dâagir ». Par le biais de Pyrame et ThisbĂ©, Shakespeare insĂšre donc une mise en abyme inversĂ©e et ironique de sa propre piĂšce, Le Songe, oĂč se bouscule une foule dâanimaux qui, eux, nâont rien de ridicule : bestiaire fascinant jamais en scĂšne Ă proprement parler, non plus que tout Ă fait hors-scĂšne, Ă lâinstar du serpent (« she », fĂ©minin dans le texte original) dont nâest donnĂ©e Ă voir que la « peau Ă©maillĂ©e » dont il « sâest dĂ©pouillĂ© » (2.1). Câest donc sur une scĂšne parallĂšle et subliminale, une Autre ScĂšne, quâĂ©volue le bestiaire infiniment variĂ© du Songe, et que se joue une confrontation sous-jacente entre lâhumain et lâanimal qui est en lui. Il sâagit ici dâanalyser quelques stratĂ©gies â quâelles soient conscientes ou purement intuitives, ancrĂ©es dans leur temps ou Ă©tonnamment modernes â par lesquelles Shakespeare met en scĂšne, dans Le Songe, cette confrontation intime, en mĂȘme temps quâil nous plonge dans de vertigineuses rĂ©flexions sur le thĂ©Ăątre
On Dogs and Good: Iris Murdochâs Animal Imagination
Il nâest guĂšre surprenant que la gent canine, exemplaire par ses capacitĂ©s dâempathie et de dĂ©vouement, soit devenue lâanimal Ă©thique par excellence des romans dâIris Murdoch, incarnant ainsi un modĂšle moral Ă lâencontre des tendances obstinĂ©ment Ă©goĂŻstes de lâhumain par ailleurs analysĂ©es dans les Ă©crits philosophiques de Murdoch. Mais voilĂ qui soulĂšve un important problĂšme esthĂ©tique : comment Ă©crire lâĂȘtre chien alors quâil est Ă©tranger au langage humain ? Cette Ă©tude propose une analyse de passages-clĂ©s tirĂ©s de quelques Ćuvres majeures de la romanciĂšre, visant Ă explorer le travail de la zoopoĂ©tique murdochienne dans son devenir animal. Dans LâAnimal que donc je suis, Jacques Derrida reconnaĂźtra ce « point de vue de lâautre absolu » au contact du regard de lâanimal ; mais cette « altĂ©ritĂ© absolue » que Derrida thĂ©orise en 1998, Iris Murdoch lâavait bien avant imaginĂ©e et mise en texte en des pages oĂč le monde est perçu, vĂ©cu par le chien â oĂč la focalisation glisse de lâhumain Ă lâanimal pour devenir ce quâil conviendrait dâappeler « zoofocalisation », comme si lâautre absolu sâemparait de la voix narrative.Dogs being exemplary in terms of empathic and selfless capabilities, it is no wonder Murdoch chose this species, in her novel-writing, as her totem ethical animal, as the counter-example to the âfat, relentless [human] egoâ (The Sovereignty of Good 52) exposed in her philosophy: âdogs are often figures of virtueâ, she once confirmed in an interview (Dooley 155). But dogsâ foreignness to human language poses a crucial aesthetic problem: how can this unspeakable alterity be written? In analyses of key-passages of some major novels, this paper proposes a zoopoetic approach to the ways in which the text works at inscribing this animal otherness. In 1998, Derrida theorised about âthe point of view of the absolute otherâ (The Animal that therefore I Am) expressed by the gaze of the animalâa point of view which Murdoch had set to words much earlier through borderline narrative experiments where focalization shifts from human to animal, in pages where the novelistâs imagination ventures into what could be termed âzoofocalisationâ, when everything passes through the animalâs perceptions as though the dogâs alterity were appropriating the narrative voice
LâĂ©criture comme subversion : The Werewolf dâAngela Carter
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"My ear to the key-hole" : l'accordeur-clé dans The Bloody Chamber d'Angela Carter
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Obscene beasts: the stage behind the scenes in A Midsummer Nightâs Dream
Mimesis, the art of imitating the real world on the stage, is all the more difficult if this real world consists of a beastâa wild, dangerous, supposedly âobsceneâ animal in the Latin sense: literally off-stage. Such is the challenge faced by the amateur company of mechanicals who are producing the love tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, A Midsummer Nightâs Dreamâs play within the play featuring a fearful lion. For all the efforts the mechanicals have engaged in the project, their rendition of the lion is such a failure that it has the on-stage spectators roar with laughter. This is a fairly convincing anticipation of Gaston Bachelardâs statement in Water and Dreams, âa ghost [a beast in this particular instance] complacently described loses its effect.â Thus, through the mechanicalsâ theatrical misadventure, Shakespeare ironically includes in A Midsummer Nightâs Dream a âhow-not-toâ guide for mimesis, a reversed mise en abyme of his own challenging conception of a play teeming with an unstageable and infinite variety of creatures great and small, wild and tame, familiar and fantastical, its presence all the more haunting as it is never staged strictly speaking. Neither staged nor completely off-scene, the bestiary of A Midsummer Nightâs Dream, emblematized by the âenamel skinâ shed âthereâ by the elusive âsnakeâ (2.1.254), is featured on a subliminal and simultaneous scene, a sub-stage as it were, an Other Scene, involving humankind in a liminal confrontation with its own animality. This paper aims to explore the strategiesâwhether rooted in the Elizabethan worldview, or amazingly modernâthrough which Shakespeare stages this inward confrontation, while involving us in vertiginous reflexions on the theatre
Flush (Virginia Woolf)â: de lâhumain Ă lâanimal sur les surfaces instables de lâAngleterre victorienne et de lâItalie du milieu XIXe
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