Revue Romane. Langue et littérature - Volume 45, Issue 2, 2010

This essay deals with the imitation and mutations of the epic genre in Don Quijote. After discussing Cervantes’ literary career as an imitation of Virgil’s cursus, many of the Virgilian elements in the novel are foregrounded. These, however are transformed as they are come in contact with forms and notions derived from Lucan’s Pharsalia. While the knight believes in the ideals of the Virgilian epic, the narrators betray him, presenting a fragmented narrative, mutilated bodies, a de-centered world, a labyrinthine topography and the failures of the protagonist, thus creating a narrative of the defeated. The clash between the unitary, authoritative, and imperial Virgil with the fragmented and republican Lucan serves to create something novel in Cervantes, a new genre that will eventually be called the novel.

In this article on the poetics of the contemporary French novel the reading process is taken as point of departure for an interrogation of the ontological status of the literary work. Since Raymond Roussel’s early experimentations, the difficulty in reading the novel is connected to its conceptual aspect. Still this does not mean that the novel does not connect with reality. On the contrary this seems to be the very matter for Raymond Queneau as a reader of Bouvard et Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert. In the twentieth century, as different writers as Georges Perec, François Bon and Claude Simon tend to explore the limits between the literary and the real, not only through auto-representation but in making the reader perceive language as representation on the one hand and as pure material on the other. Thus the intention behind the readings of La Vie mode d’emploi (1978), Tumulte (2006) and Le Jardin des plantes (1997) is to underline the ironic aspect of these novels and the paradox that in spite of very different structures and styles they all three become a means for examining the possibility of human experience as intertwined with literary expression. To grasp this essential aspect of the contemporary novel one has to practice a differential reading (Marjorie Perloff) implying different textual levels and a relevant contextualisation.

One of the main characteristics of Romain Gary is the constant attempt to transgress the boundaries between life and fiction. His autobiographic texts are as a rule highly fictitious. On the other hand, in real life, he tried to live out a fiction written for him by his mother and, later on, by himself. The ambivalence of the relation between fiction and truth characterizes all of his books, but it is particularly interesting in his attempts at the autobiographical genre where it reveals a quite original understanding of human identity, and the dialectics of memory and forgetting,

The present article analyses the philosophical interpretations of Don Quijote as the first modern novel, specifically the interpretations of Lukacs (The Theory of the Novel) and Foucault (The Order of Things). In order to determine whether Cervantes’ masterpiece can be assimilated with the notion of modernity Lukacs and Foucault operate with, two aspects are analysed: the novel’s closure and the play of the authorial figures.

Noting that both the earliest readers of Montaigne’s Essais and their modern counterparts have likened them to a dialogue with a friend, this article seeks to explore the work’s dialogic characteristics. The humanist dialogue is an obvious precursor to the Essais, and even though Montaigne voiced dissatisfaction with Plato’s dialogues, he aspired to match Plato’s style, not least in achieving a conversational tone. Three different elements of dialogue are analysed : the “Dialogue of One” between the different parts of Montaigne’s mind, the dialogue between the author and the writers quoted and paraphrased, and the use of direct address to the reader to invite or provoke the reader to enter into dialogue with the author. This essay is concerned to show how Montaigne uses the dialogue to create an entirely new genre, poised between monologue and dialogue.

The peak of aphorisms leads us to set out questions regarding this form of expression which is a sort of mixture: half philosophy and half literature. Firstly, this paper examines the aphorism in terms of its complex definition: the maxim, the dictum, the apothegm, the enigma and the fragment. Secondly, this article brings out the differences between the aphorism and other forms, such as ‘greguería’, joke and riddle. Thirdly, this paper also studies the aphorism as a genre in its history. It questions and debates the relationship between the short classic literary forms and the modern aphorism. Finally, the diachronic analysis of the aphorism and the terminological analysis lead to a conception of this form that is linked to the human facticity, based on the intersection between world and language.