70 research outputs found
« The Infinite Terror of the Brilliance of Colour » : couleur et violence dans quelques nouvelles dâA.S. Byatt
Aux cĂŽtĂ©s de Robin, le peintre qui dans « Art Work » a dĂ©cidĂ© de vouer sa vie toute entiĂšre à « lâinfinie terreur de lâĂ©clat de la couleur », on trouve chez Byatt bien dâautres artistes mus par la mĂȘme passion, comme Bernard dans « A Lamia in the CĂ©vennes », qui dit en sâadressant Ă un papillon quâil sâapprĂȘte Ă peindre : « Purple and orange is a terrible and violent fate ». Ce destin, on le comprend, est aussi bien celui du peintre que celui de la crĂ©ature quâil a sous les yeux. On ne peut ainsi manquer dâĂȘtre interpellĂ©, en lisant les nouvelles dâA.S. Byatt, non seulement par la fascination quây exerce la couleur, mais par cette insistance sur sa violence : violence du sacrifice quâelle exige chez lâartiste, violence des effets quâelle produit, et plus largement, violence du silence dans lequel elle sâexprime. Une fois repĂ©rĂ©e la persistance de ce thĂšme, la question se pose de savoir comment lâĂ©criture peut prĂ©tendre Ă son tour âfaire de la couleurâ, et comment, en mettant sa violence en mots, elle peut ne pas lui faire violence Ă son tour.Next to Robin, the painter who in âArt Workâ has devoted his whole life to âthe infinite terror of the brilliance of colourâ, one can find in Byattâs stories quite a few other artists who share the same passion, such as Bernard in âA Lamia in the CĂ©vennesâ who says to a butterfly he is about to paint: âPurple and orange is a terrible and violent fateâ. This âfateâ, as the story makes quite clear, is that of the painter as much as that of the creature he has in front of him. In reading Byattâs stories, one is not only struck by the fascination of her fiction for colour but also by the insistent association of colour and violence. This violence lies in the sacrifice colour seems to demand from the artist, in the intensity of its effects, but also more largely in the violence of the silence in which it expresses itself. Beyond the persistence of this theme, one may wonder how it is possible for the text to âmake colourâ, how putting the violence of colour into words runs, and avoids, the risk of being itself an act of violation
â[S]he Has a Knife in [Her] Handâ: Writing/Cutting in Nadine Gordimerâs Short Stories
This paper focuses on some of the key gestures which give Gordimerâs stories their disruptive power. Across the years and from one grave to another (âSix Feet of the Countryâ/âThe Moment Before the Gun Went Off â), Gordimerâs text both exposes the failures of the symbolic and fends off the threat of the abject. Paying particular attention to the punctuation/punctures of the stories at the strategic point of closure, the article also traces, in the more formally complex stories of Jump, the way in which voice becomes the instrument of the dislocation of the narrative
La description comme Ă©vocation dans Waterland de Graham Swift
Du descriptif, Philippe Hamon dit quâil est « le lieu dâune conscience paradigmatique dans lâĂ©noncé ». Dans un texte aussi densĂ©ment mĂ©taphorique que Waterland, on serait dâabord tentĂ© de souligner lâeffet de saturation paradigmatique auquel contribue le descriptif, saturation quâil est intĂ©ressant de mettre en regard avec une double « crise » dont tĂ©moigne ce roman : Ă savoir la mise Ă mal des notions de continuitĂ© et de causalitĂ© dâune part, et dâautre part lâincapacitĂ© de garantir le lien ..
Resonance and Spectrality in Graham Swiftâs Fiction
LâĆuvre de Graham Swift a pu ĂȘtre abordĂ©e sous lâangle de la rĂ©pĂ©tition, mais il convient de se demander ce quâil advient lorsque cette rĂ©pĂ©tition se fait rĂ©sonance et nous laisse entendre une voix qui ne semble pas entiĂšrement appartenir Ă celui ou celle dont elle Ă©mane. Le roman swiftien laisse place, Ă cĂŽtĂ© du âsujet raisonnantâ, Ă ce que Nancy appelle un âsujet rĂ©sonantâ que lâon peut voir comme un spectre du premier. Ăcho ârecompose lâespaceâ, produit ce que Nancy appelle âlâentre et lâantre du sonâ. Elle implique le corps de maniĂšre ambivalente, lâeffaçant ou âlâabolissantâ (GĂ©ly) tout en donnant une dimension corporelle Ă cette âvoix qui survit au corpsâ (GĂ©ly) et Ă ses effets sur dâautres corps : les mots prennent vie et substance dĂšs lors quâils trouvent un Ă©cho/une rĂ©ponse Ă travers le sujet en qui ils rĂ©sonnent. En Ă©troite relation avec le vide et lâorigine absente qui hantent la fiction swiftienne, Ăcho est nĂ©anmoins ici porteuse dâune heureuse transformation : tout en dĂ©faisant lâillusion dâune prĂ©sence Ă soi, cette voix autre, orpheline, sâimpose aussi comme une voix transpersonnelle.Repetition is often considered to be one of the distinctive features of Swiftâs work, but not enough attention is paid to the resonant quality of his text and to the role played by a voice which sounds as though it did not entirely belong to its speaker but came from elsewhere. Swiftâs novels allow what Jean-Luc Nancy calls âle sujet rĂ©sonantâ to emerge beside âle sujet raisonnantâ â as its spectre. Echo ârecomposes spaceâ, produces what Nancy calls âlâantre et lâentre du sonâ. It involves the body in an ambivalent manner, effacing or âabolishingâ it (GĂ©ly) whilst asserting the bodily dimension of âthe voice that survives the bodyâ (GĂ©ly) and its effects on other bodies: words gain life and substance as they âfind an echoâ in the subject in / through whom they resonate. While it may be connected with the void or missing origin that haunts Swiftâs fiction, Echo also marks the felicitous metamorphosis of the illusory self-present voice into a transpersonal voice
The In(de)finite Object of the Gaze: Reading Ian McEwanâs Atonement with Henry Jamesâs Turn of the Screw
This paper dwells on the multiple echoes and points of convergence between Atonement and The Turn of the Screw, a text which has been rather overlooked in the teeming intertextuality crisscrossing McEwanâs novel. Thanks to a sophisticated scenography, the English novelist, just like Henry James, explores both the avidity of the eye and the anxiety it faces in front of what turns out to be an in(de)finite object, the ob-scene that shatters the frame of the scene. Structured around dramatic visual encounters that result in a frenzied escalation, the narrative shows how the fierce determination to protect innocence leads to a crime: the English garden becomes the theatre in which the âromance of the nurseryâ turns to tragedy. McEwanâs novel, very much like Jamesâs tale, explores the fearful and destructive power of a certainty that too easily wipes away the fogs of doubt; it invites us to think of the spectral not as a marginal phenomenon, but, in the line of âthe spectral turnâ, as what fractures the word and the gaze. In the wake of Jamesâs tale, the ghostly in McEwan involves the person who lives to tell the story, whether she is engaged in vision or in re-vision. At the point where McEwan seems to part company with James and as the long path to atonement begins, the ghosts continue to unsettle the narrative.Cet article se propose dâĂ©tudier les multiples Ă©chos et points de convergence entre Atonement et The Turn of the Screw de Henry James, texte que la critique semble avoir peu pris en compte dans son examen de lâintertextualitĂ© foisonnante du roman de McEwan. Ă travers la scĂ©nographie sophistiquĂ©e quâil met en place, le romancier anglais, Ă la suite de James, explore Ă la fois lâaviditĂ© de lâĆil et lâangoisse qui surgit face Ă ce qui sâimpose comme un objet in(dĂ©)fini, lâob-scĂšne qui met Ă mal le cadre de la scĂšne. StructurĂ© autour de plusieurs mini-drames du regard qui sâenchaĂźnent dans une tension grandissante, le rĂ©cit montre comment la dĂ©termination fĂ©roce Ă protĂ©ger lâinnocence mĂšne au crime : le jardin anglais devient le thĂ©Ăątre oĂč la « romance de la nurserie » tourne Ă la tragĂ©die. Le roman de McEwan, Ă lâinstar du conte de James, explore le pouvoir redoutable et meurtrier dâune certitude qui Ă©carte trop facilement les brumes du doute ; il nous amĂšne, dans la lignĂ©e du « tournant spectral », Ă penser le spectral non comme un Ă©piphĂ©nomĂšne, mais comme ce qui installe sa faille au cĆur de la parole et du regard. Comme chez James, le spectral chez McEwan implique celle qui porte le rĂ©cit, il affecte sa vision autant que son entreprise de rĂ©-vision ; au point oĂč lâon pourrait penser que McEwan laisse James derriĂšre lui et lĂ oĂč dĂ©bute un long chemin dâexpiation, les fantĂŽmes persistent Ă troubler le rĂ©cit
Introduction
DĂ©sir, rĂȘve ou fantasme, la transparence est peut-ĂȘtre dâabord une aspiration qui porte lâĂ©criture comme la crĂ©ation artistique. Comment ne pas reconnaĂźtre dans lâimage, mais aussi bien dans le texte, la puissance avec laquelle sâexprime la volontĂ© de donner Ă voir, de dissiper les brumes de lâhabitude, de lever le voile qui rend le monde terne, opaque ou indiffĂ©rent ? Il nâest pourtant pas rare que ce rĂȘve se brouille au moment du face-Ă -face avec la page ou la toile â dans lâĂ©preuve des mot..
Introduction
DĂ©sir, rĂȘve ou fantasme, la transparence est peut-ĂȘtre dâabord une aspiration qui porte lâĂ©criture comme la crĂ©ation artistique. Comment ne pas reconnaĂźtre dans lâimage, mais aussi bien dans le texte, la puissance avec laquelle sâexprime la volontĂ© de donner Ă voir, de dissiper les brumes de lâhabitude, de lever le voile qui rend le monde terne, opaque ou indiffĂ©rent ? Il nâest pourtant pas rare que ce rĂȘve se brouille au moment du face-Ă -face avec la page ou la toile â dans lâĂ©preuve des mot..
Place and Placelessness in Postcolonial Short Fiction: Introduction
The unprecedented development of the short story in the literatures that emerged in the former colonies of the British Empire has by now become a well-researched literary fact. Postcolonial critics have teased out the relationships between a genre long regarded as a minor one (at least before its Modernist canonization) and the marginal positions of writers who came to the short story as a creative terrain to experiment with spatial compression and the startling insights it affords, from Joyc..
Why Does Placelessness Matter?: Nadine Gordimerâs âTeraloynaâ
This article assesses the crucial role played by placelessness in the fiction of a writer who never allows her readers to lose sight of the referential coordinates and political implications of her stories. âTeraloynaâ in Nadine Gordimerâs Jump exemplifies the growingly complex narrative strategies that she came to develop over time in her attempt to achieve a greater directness in her writing whilst putting stronger emphasis on the opacity of her medium. At first sight placelessness â whether it involves the fable, allegory, the intertext or metalepsis â seems to take us away from place to better return to it. But this odd tale invites us to think the âmaking it strangeâ of place further, against the dangerous temptation to lock everything into place
« My mother called me Silver. I was born part precious metal part pirate » : nomination et appel(lation) dans Lighthousekeeping et dans la fiction de Jeanette Winterson
Starting from the suggestions âpackedâ in the first lines of Lighthouseekeeping, this paper examines the paradoxes that surround the question of naming in the novel and in Jeanette Wintersonâs Ćuvre as a whole. In a fictional world which foregrounds the necessity to invent oneself, naming does not consist so much in designating what exists as in bringing to existence what would otherwise simply not be. The need to create oneself from scratch does not prevent Wintersonâs fiction from claiming multiple literary filiations. Yet the debt works both ways, whilst the rigid opposition between who speaks and who causes the other to speak collapses. The play with the signifier and with the letter also involves the proper noun, as if the unique value of what it designates were best translated by the mobility and pliability of a language which is shaped by affect and blurs the difference between what is proper and what is common. That the name should not fit (a salutary fact in Wintersonâs fiction) does not deprive it of its efficacy. Naming goes hand in hand with calling (âMy mother called me Silverâ âŠ), which displaces the question of the power of the name from what it is to what it does. At the same time, calling exposes one to the possibility that the other wonât answer, and re-engages the question of origins. Far from sustaining the illusion of being present to oneself, voice and its echoes opens a breach which is reflected in Sapphoâs question in Art and Lies: âwho calls whom?â
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