Susan Hill´s Mrs de Winter and Sally Beauman´s Rebecca´s tale: re-visions of daphne du Maurier´s Rebecca?

International audienceThis paper examines two types of transfictional texts that appear little challenging to the ending and, consequently, to the discourse of their source-texts. After attempting to define the workings and scopes of sequels and companion novels, we shall consider two instances provided by Daphne du Maurier'sRebecca’s rich afterlife since its publication and success in 1938: Susan Hill's Mrs de Winter (1993) and Sally Beauman'sRebecca's Tale (2001) that engage with Rebecca’s ending and discourse in different ways and with diverse results.Este artículo examina dos tipos de textostransficcionales que parecendesafiar muy poco el final y, porconsiguiente, el discurso de sus fuentestextuales. Después de intentardefinir los mecanismos y el alcance de las novelas-secuela que continuaronestostextos, asícomootrasnovelascompañeras de los mismos, vamos a considerar dos ejemplosextraídos de la fértil vida posterior de Rebecca, de Daphne De Maurier, despuésdeléxito de su publicación en 1938: Mrs de Winter, de Susan Hill (1993) y Rebecca's Tale, de Sally Beauman (2001), que interactúan con el final y el discurso de Rebecca de manerasdiferentes y con resultados distintos

When Charles Dickens enters the house of fiction: Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs and Joseph O’connor’s Star of the Sea

Charles Dickens is probably THE Victorian novelist posterity remembers best, or at least the most, to the extent that he also occasionally appears as a character of fi ction. Part of his private life is thus rewritten in Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs (1997) which also dwells on his activity as a writer, pretending to account for the circumstances of the writing of Great Expectations. Dickens has also appeared in Joseph O’Connor’s Star of the Sea (2002), where circumstances for his writing are emphasized too. This paper is thus a modest attempt at assessing these fictional representations of Charles Dickens in today’s novels. Charles Dickens probablemente es EL novelista victoriano que la posteridad mejor recuerda, o al menos, al que más recuerda, hasta el punto de que ocasionalmente aparece como un personaje de ficción. Así, un parte de su vida privada está reescrita en la novela Jack Maggs de Peter Carey (1997) que también se concentra en su actividad como escritor, fi ngiendo explicar las circunstancias de la novela Great Expectations. Además Dickens tuvo un papel en Star of the Sea de Joseph O’Connor (2002), donde están enfatizadas las circunstancias por su escritura también. Así, este artículo intenta evaluar estas representaciones fi cticias de Charles Dickens en las novelas de hoy

(Re)Constructing Memory with “Imagination’s Invisible Ink” in Carol Shields’ The Stone Diaries

The Stone Diaries illustre l’intérêt de Carol Shields pour l’écriture d’une vie et la façon dont cette vie est remémorée et narrée. En prenant en compte le concept d’identité narrative de Paul Ricœur, cet article considère comment et pourquoi Daisy Goodwill, la narratrice, (re)construit les souvenirs de sa propre vie en ayant recours à son imagination. Nous montrerons d’abord que la dimension rétrospective est problématisée par le biais de l’hybridisation des genres puis comment la mémoire apparait en perpétuelle (re)construction, avant d’étudier cet aspect du roman en relation avec la question de la finalité.The Stone Diaries (1993) illustrates Carol Shields’s pervading interest in the writing of lives and in the way these lives are remembered and narrated. Bearing in mind Paul Ricœur’s concept of “narrative identity”, I propose to consider how and why Daisy Goodwill (re)constructs memories of her life and others’ with the recourse to imagination. This paper will first look at the problematisation of the retrospective dimension in the novel, a problematisation that is achieved through the hybridisation of life writing genres. Memory is not a fixed feature but is constantly being re-constructed as shall be seen in the second part. Finally, I propose to consider the issue of closure in relation to the never-ending process of updating one’s memory to make sense of one’s life

Confluence and the Neo-Victorian in Dickensian

Charles Dickens's work is a favourite for screen and TV adaptations even though the latter tend to be deemed conservative. These adaptations however focus normally on one particular novel. BBC1's Dickensian (2016) purports to be different as the 20-part serial ambitiously takes on a whole universe, the one created by Dickens, with characters from various novels now all featuring in the same televisual text, illustrating the process of confluence (or mash-up). This paper seeks to examine Dickensian as neo-victorian televisual text in light of its mash-up structure

“Sensory aspects in A.S. Byatt’s neo-Victorian fiction”

International audienceA.S. Byatt’s fiction may be perceived as intellectual, wordy and complex because of its engagement with ideas. When it represents the Victorian period, the latter is indeed diverse, rich and again, intellectual. Yet, Byatt’s style can be described as sensual, in its strong reliance on the five senses in descriptions of characters and places. The aim of this paper is to examine the relevance of these sensory aspects to convey a sense of the past in Byatt’s neo-Victorian fiction. Texts under study include “Precipice-Encurled”, Possession and Angels and Insects.This paper discusses how the successful understanding of the past is made out to be a sensory experience through a comparison of the biographer in “Precipice-Encurled” and the scholars in Possession. It also analyses how the description of the neo-Victorian characters’ sensory perceptions and of landscapes or settings mobilise the reader’s sensory response

Randall Stevenson. The Oxford English Literary History, Volume 12. 1960-2000. The Last of England?

Randall Stevenson, Professor of Twentieth Century Literature at the University of Edinburgh, has taken upon himself the task of writing the 12th volume of The Oxford English Literary History. Entitled The last of England? it purports to inform us on the period stretching from 1960 to 2000. But Randall Stevenson’s engrossing history also wants to be thought-provoking as the question mark punctuating the title indicates. With its multiple reference to works past and present, ranging from Pre-Ra..

Prequels, Coquels and Sequels in Contemporary Anglophone Fiction

International audienceThis book offers to delineate a key phenomenon in contemporary Anglophone fiction: novel expansion, when the plot and characters from a finished novel are retrieved to be developed in new adventures set before, after or during the narrative time of the source-text. If autographic and allographic sequels are almost as old as literature, prequels – that imagine the anteriority of a narrative – and coquels – that develop secondary characters in the same story time as the source-text – are more recent. The overall trend for novel expansion spread in the mid-1980s and 1990s and has since shown no sign of abating.This volume is organised following three types of relationships to the source-texts even if these occasionally combine to produce a more complex structure. This book comprises 11 essays, preceded by an introduction, that examine narrative strategies, aesthetic, ethical and political tendencies underlying these novel expansions. Following the overview provided in the introduction, the reader will find case studies of prequels, coquels and sequels before a final chapter that encompasses them all and more

“Narrative Expansions – The Story so Far...”.

International audienceThis introduction first offers to clarify the situation with definitions of sequels, prequels, coquels and other instances of novel expansion in contemporary Anglophone fiction and points to characteristics shared by all. After a necessary distinction between allographic and autographic expansions, the politics that are at the heart of novel expansions are examined to show that expanding may now merge with rewriting, whereas the two notions were initially opposed. The effects of the filling in of the blanks in source-texts are then discussed as they may convey a whole and inclusive vision typical of realism or alternatively a sense of fragmentation. Finally, this introduction questions the reception and impact novel expansions may have on readers, source-texts and memory before introducing the case studies that form the body of this volume

“There's a wooden thing for sitting”: Representing Memory Loss in Emma Healey's Elizabeth is Missing.

International audienceThis paper examines the narrative and stylistic strategies at work in Emma Healey's Elizabeth is Missing (2014) to render the condition implied by Alzheimer's disease. At the beginning of the novel, because she has forgotten what has recently happened to her friend Elizabeth and can just see in the present that “Elizabeth is missing”, Maud starts an inquiry, convinced that something amiss has happened to her friend. In Maud's mind, this investigation combines with that of her sister's unexplained disappearance shortly after the second world war. Maud is however stalled in her double project of investigation because of her developing dementia. This paper first considers the use of conceits belonging to detective fiction in Healey's novel before exploring the role and impact of the first-person narrator. Finally, it tries to establish if the detour by detective fiction and the reference to the historical past of post-war Britain provide the means for a stabilizing closure.Si la maladie a toujours été présente en littérature, de nouvelles affections ont récemment fait leur entrée dans la fiction anglophone fiction. Tel est le cas de la maladie d'Alzheimer et autres formes de démence qui perturbent le fonctionnement normal du cerveau dont notamment la mémoire des individus. Cet article se concentre sur Elizabeth is Missing (2014) d'Emma Healey (traduit en français par Corinne Daniellot sous le titre L'oubli). Au début du roman, parce qu'elle a oublié ce qui vient d'arriver à Elizabeth et qu'elle constate seulement l'absence de son amie (“Elizabeth is missing”), Maud entreprend une enquête. Dans l'esprit de Maud, cette investigation se combine à un autre, concernant la disparition inexpliquée de sa sœur juste après la seconde guerre mondiale. Maud est cependant contrariée dans sa double quête par l'avancée de sa mémoire déficiente. Nous examinerons en détail les stratégies narratives et stylistiques mises en œuvre, parmi lesquelles le recours au roman de détection et le choix d'un narrateur à la première personne, pour rendre compte du processus de l'oubli et de ses enjeux

La postérité de Rebecca de Daphne du Maurier : réécritures et transfictions

International audienceDaphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca is one of these novels that are regularly submitted to rewriting and expansion. If the process “preserves the traditional canon’s centrality” (as Jeremy Rosen says about minor character elaborations), it also participates in the critical reassessment of the source text as it throws a new light on it. This article discusses very diverse transfictions based on Du Maurier’s novel and examines the workings of the various narrative strategies adopted to reactivate the well-known novel. This will enable us to underline the elements, traits or characteristics of Rebecca that are picked upon – and which ensure Du Maurier’s novel an afterlife – and how these various revisions and/or expansions engage with the source text. While Antonia Fraser’s “Rebecca’s Story” (1976) is a coquel enabling a first-person account by Rebecca of her marriage, Rose Tremain’s “The Housekeeper” (2014) changes diegetic level as it portrays the young Du Maurier and gives an account of the inspiration behind Rebecca by the character misrepresented as Mrs. Danvers. Other texts under study are Susan Hill’s Mrs. de Winter (1993) and Sally Beauman’s Rebecca’s Tale (2001), which offer narrative and temporal expansions, and finally Lisa Gabriele’s The Winters (2018), a transposition of the plot and its characters to contemporary America.Rebecca de Daphne du Maurier est l’un de ces romans régulièrement soumis à la réécriture et à l’expansion narrative. Si ceci garantit la centralité du canon traditionnel (comme le dit Jeremy Rosen des développements de personnages mineurs), cela contribue également à une ré-évaluation critique du texte-source en jetant un nouvel éclairage sur celui-ci. Cet article s’intéresse donc à des transfictions diverses élaborées à partir du roman de du Maurier et étudie le fonctionnement des différentes stratégies narratives adoptées pour réactiver ce célèbre roman. Ceci nous permettra de souligner pourquoi et comment certains éléments, traits et caractéristiques de Rebecca sont repris, révélant comment ces différentes révisions et/ou expansions se positionnent par rapport au texte-source. Alors que “Rebecca’s Story” (1976) de Margaret Fraser est une expansion narrative latérale qui permet un récit de son mariage par Rebecca elle-même, “The Housekeeper” (2014) de Rose Tremain change de niveau diégétique et s’intéresse à la jeune du Maurier comme personnage, racontant l’inspiration derrière Rebecca par la voix du personnage qui se déclare représenté sous un faux jour dans le récit, sous les traits de Mrs. Danvers. Les autres textes étudiés sont Mrs. de Winter (1993) de Susan Hill et Rebecca’s Tale (2001) de Sally Beauman qui offrent tous deux des expansions temporelles et narratives et enfin, The Winters (2018) de Lisa Gabriele qui transpose l’intrigue et les personnages dans l’Amérique contemporaine