G. Kimber, Katherine Mansfield : The View from France

KIMBER, Gerri, Katherine Mansfield : The View from France, New York / Bern / Berlin / Bruxelles / Frankfurt am Main / Oxford / Wien, Peter Lang (European Connections), 2008, 290 p.
ISBN 978-3-03911-392-7

RÉSUMÉ

This book assesses the reason why Katherine Mansfield's reputation in France has always been greater than in England. It examines the ways in which the French reception of Mansfield has idealised her persona to the extent of crafting a hagiography. Mansfield is placed within the general literary context of her era, exploring French literary tendencies at the time and juxtaposing them with the main literary trends in England. The author determines the motives behind the French critics' desire to put Mansfield on a pedestal, discusses how the three years she spent on French soil influenced her writing and whether the translations of her work collude in the myth surrounding her personality. This book is the first sustained attempt to establish interconnections between her own French influences (literary and otherwise) and the myth-making of the French critics and translators. The book also follows the critical appraisal of Mansfield's life and work in France from her death up to the present day, by closely analysing the differing French critical responses. The author reveals how these various strands combine to create a legend which has little basis in fact, thereby demonstrating how reception and translation determine the importance of an author's reputation in the literary world.

TABLES DES MATIÈRES

Influences and Innovations - Falling for France - Specific French Literary Influences - Back to Basics: Mansfield's Narrative Technique - Translating Katherine Mansfield - The Critical Trend: The Development of the Legend.

BIOGRAPHIE

Gerri Kimber is Lecturer in New Zealand Studies at the Centre for New Zealand Studies, Birkbeck, University of London. She has published extensively on Katherine Mansfield and has also written articles on C. K. Stead, Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Virginia Woolf. She is co-editor of the CNZS Bulletin of New Zealand Studies and co-organiser of the Katherine Mansfield Centenary Conference, Birkbeck, University of London, in September 2008.