Foreword

The present issue contains an eclectic selection of six substantial essays by European, American and Canadian scholars on 20th century Irish, British, Caribbean and American stories. It also contains a review of Lucy Evans’ The Carribbean Short Story by Marie-Annick Montout and Kasia Boddy’s The American Short Story Since 1950 by Jean-Yves Pellegrin. In “Images of Blankness in Joseph Conrad’s ‘The Warrior’s Soul’, ‘Prince Roman’ and 'The Tale’” Fiona Tomkinson discusses the representation of ..

Foreword

The Spring 2010 issue of the Journal of the Short Story in English is a general issue which features articles about short-story writings ranging in time from the very beginning of the twentieth century to the very beginning of the twenty-first. The articles are arranged chronologically in this issue, but present some similarities in approach. Michael Tritt, Rim Makni-Béjar and Adrienne Akins, in the articles which open and close the issue, deal with racial identity in short stories by Alice D..

Foreword

The 52th issue of the Journal of the Short Story in English is dedicated to Professor Ben Forkner who, twenty seven years ago founded the Journal and launched its first issue. Professor Forkner will complete his final teaching duties at the end of this grading period but we are delighted that he does not intend to retire from his editorial responsibilities. The present issue contains fourteen essays, an interview and two book reviews. It also includes an index nominorum and an index nominorum..

Foreword

We are pleased to present this special issue on the stories of Alice Munro, one of the greatest short story writers in contemporary literature. It was put together by Professor Héliane Ventura, our guest editor, one of France’s leading scholars in Canadian studies in general and Munro’s fiction in particular. Professor Héliane Ventura is also a specialist in classical studies, European mythology and the relationship between text and image. She has a scholarly and personal approach which makes..

Foreword

The Spring 2010 issue of the Journal of the Short Story in English is a general issue which features articles about short-story writings ranging in time from the very beginning of the twentieth century to the very beginning of the twenty-first. The articles are arranged chronologically in this issue, but present some similarities in approach. Michael Tritt, Rim Makni-Béjar and Adrienne Akins, in the articles which open and close the issue, deal with racial identity in short stories by Alice D..

Foreword

“Each day I find myself like a lonely traveler at a crossroads, standing and asking: Which way? Which way?” By these words Elizabeth Spencer brought to a close her interview at the 1992 International Symposium “Short Stories of the American South,” of which she was the Guest of Honor. The event was hosted by the Journal of the Short Story in English at the University of Angers. “Finally, you just have to choose one,” she added, “—and keep moving.” Since then, although she steadily kept moving..

Paule Lévy, Figures de l’artiste, Identité et écriture dans la littérature juive américaine de la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle. Pessac, Presses universitaires de Bordeaux, 2006. 191 pages. (ISBN 10 : 286781 391 3, ISBN 13 : 978 2 86781 391 7).

L’ouvrage de Paule Lévy, Figures de l’artiste, Identité et écriture dans la littérature juive américaine de la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle, est le troisième volume paru dans la collection « Lettres d’Amérique(s) », dirigée par Yves-Charles Grandjeat, aux Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux. Le corpus de ce nouvel ouvrage se constitue d’une dizaine de romans, nouvelles et novellas réflexives dans lesquelles l’auteur étudie la représentation littéraire des interactions culturelles dans la cons..

Migrations transatlantiques latentes dans “The Yellow Bird” de Tennessee Williams

The literary transatlantic migrations in Tennessee Williams’ “The Yellow Bird” (1947) are studied from the point of view of parodic rewriting and recycling. The structure of the story produces polyphonic effects that create a dramatic tension between the tragic and the comic, the present and the past, the real and the imaginary, as they move to and fro between the Ancient and the New Worlds. The effects and ensuing tensions are achieved through the latent interposition of the phoenix, a symbol whose presence is periphrastically hinted at as early as the title: the “yellow bird” is a transatlantic figure out of British modernism (for Williams recuperated it from D. H. Lawrence’s work) which embodies rebirth and renewal. It takes under its aegis Alma, a minister’s daughter whom it accompanies in her metamorphosis into a prostitute. The article uses the concepts of heteroglossia and performativity to demonstrate that Alma’s transformation is due to her acting out the meaning of her name in various languages. Through this performance, Alma’s identity is diffracted into multiple facets from literal, acclimatized, or endogenous Puritanism to a transatlantic literary crossbreed. Eventually, by means of an inverted correspondence, Alma, the prostitute, proves to be a parody of the Virgin Mary. As Mary, Mother of God is mother to her own creator, so Alma is a metaleptical and metafictional figure of the author. Transatlantic migrations are thus part of a larger issue that concerns fiction in general and Williams’ oeuvre in particular. The story (like Williams’ work in general) questions the impermeability of the boundaries that define time, space, genders and genres to highlight the interdependence that develops between the individual and the community, realism and fantasy, reality and fiction

Violent Fragility: The Mythical, the Iconic and Tennessee Williams' Politics of Gender in "One Arm"

Assortie d’un dessin de l’auteur, la nouvelle de Tennessee Williams “One Arm” (« Le Boxeur manchot », 1948), est un récit qui, comme le Traité sur la tolérance (1763) de Voltaire, Le Dernier jour d’un condamné (1829) de Victor Hugo, La Balade de la Geôle de Reading (1897) d’Oscar Wilde ou L’Etranger (1942) de Camus, s’engage ouvertement contre la peine de mort. La plaidoirie de Williams contre la peine capitale repose sur un canevas où les concepts nietzschéens de l’apollonien et du dionysiaque rencontrent l’œuvre de D.H. Laurence, le mythe de la descente aux enfers de Dionysos, le mythe d’Iacchos, la figure du Christ et, sur le plan de l’image, La Chaise (1888) de Van Gogh. Ce qui permet au texte d’associer le pouvoir idéologique du mythe à la question d’identités sexuelles et à la littérature du Sud. Cet article tente d’illustrer que la fragilité est ici présentée comme source de puissance. Le héros de la nouvelle, Oliver Winemiller, montre, d’une part, que le pouvoir de la littérature du Sud réside dans sa fragilité et, d’autre part, il personnifie aussi la fragilité performante du corpus littéraire de Williams

Christening Pagans: Onomastics and Plot in Elizabeth Bowen’s “Daffodils,” “Her Table Spread” and “Look at All Those Roses”

Fondé d’une part sur l’onomastique et de l’autre sur la mythologie, l’article propose une lecture critique de trois nouvelles d’Elizabeth Bowen : “Daffodils”, “Her Table Spread” et “Look at All Those Roses”. Le conte des fées, la mythologie classique et le gothique forment le cadre triparti dans lequel se développent des personnages héritiers ou victimes du passé. À l’encontre de la réalité et pour ressembler à la fable, le passé est une création de l’homme ; il a, pour ainsi dire, « une forme », et de ce fait s’avère aussi menaçant que la fiction. Irlandaise protestante, Bowen invite ses compatriotes catholiques à connaître leur passé, à se connaître, afin qu’ils réalisent  les dangers de ce qu’elle-même pratique avec ferveur : la  mythification  de la réalité