E. Epinoux, N. Martinière (dir.), The Status of Rewriting in 20^th-21^stcentury Art, Film and Literature in English: Aesthetic Choice or Political Act ?

Référence bibliographique : Estelle Epinoux & Nathalie Martinière eds.The Status of Rewriting in 20^th-21^stcentury Art, Film and Literature in English: Aesthetic Choice or Political Act?,, Michel Houdiard, 2015.

 The Status of Rewriting in 20^th-21^stcentury Art, Film and Literature in English: Aesthetic Choice or Political Act?, Estelle Epinoux & Nathalie Martinière eds., Paris: Michel Houdiard Editeur, 2015.

The contemporary period favours – or so it says – originality and the individual. A number of English-speaking novelists, artists or film-makers have nevertheless chosen to deal repeatedly with the question of “rewriting”. They tackle it in ways that are not necessarily identical or that may even seem poles apart: neo-Victorian “nostalgic post-modernism” is very different from the re-reading/rewriting of classics performed by postcolonial authors. But contemporary cases shed an interesting light on the practice of rewriting in general: oscillating between aesthetic and political/ideological preoccupations, rewriting appears as a protean figure of renewal, in which a large part of contemporary literary and artistic analysis and theory seem to be grounded. It has been argued that it corresponds to the ethos of our time – summarizing our way of passing stories and history to the next generation. It seems only fair therefore to try to assess its particular status in modernity and post-modernity and what it tells us about this period’s desire to control stories and history.

This collection of essays from the conference “The Status of Rewriting in 20^th-21^st century Art, Film and Literature in English: aesthetic choice or political act?” held at the University of Limoges (22-23 November, 2012) addresses the question of rewriting in-between politics and aesthetics in the English-speaking world in order to see what sort of influence an apparently very autotelic game has on reality. Contributors have tried to take a number of questions raised by 20^th and 21^st century rewritings into consideration in order to assess the variety, evolution, topicality of this practice – ranging from the aesthetic conversation carried out with tradition to more political or ideological aspects from which the aesthetic dimension can rarely be separated. 

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION  

Nathalie Martinière

PART I ‘BRACKETING THE PAST’: THE STAKES OF REWRITING

MRS DALLOWAY’S AFTERLIVES: FROM CARICATURE TO BLANK PARODY

Monica Latham

POST-COLONIAL REWRITINGS: THE EXAMPLES OF PETER CAREY’S JACK MAGGS (1997) AND LLOYD JONES’S MISTER PIP (2006)

Isabelle Roblin

REWRITING THE RESTORATION. SATIRE, AUTHORITY AND THE CARNIVALESQUE IN ROSE TREMAIN’S RESTORATION AND JEANETTE WINTERSON’S SEXING THE CHERRY

Emilie Walezak

WHEN A COMMENTARY ON TODAY’S FICTION BECOMES A CRITICISM OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY: THE ART OF REWRITING IN D.M. THOMAS’S CHARLOTTE

Fanny Delnieppe

« DUBBING THE ORIGINAL » OR THE WAYS OF ‘UN-WRITING’ IN JAMAICA KINCAID’S NON FICTION Andrée-Anne Kekeh-Dika

PART II THE CANON AND ITS IMPACT

AT WAR WITH THE CLASSICS: H.D.’S REWRITINGS OF EURIPIDES

Bertrand Rouby

ANTI-MATERNAL REWRITING IN RYDER: DJUNA BARNES’S FEMINIST TWIST ON CHAUCER

Amy Wells

KATE ATKINSON: REWRITING THE FAIRY TALE’S HAPPY ENDING IN HUMAN CROQUET

Armelle Parey

“LIKE A ROCK IN THE STREAM”: CONFLICT, FACTS AND FICTION IN CONTEMPORARY REWRITINGS OF THE GREAT WAR

Elsa Cavalié

REWRITING THE PAST: ALAN HOLLINGHURST’S THE STRANGER’S CHILD

Xavier Giudicelli

RE-WRITING, TRANSLATING AND CHINUA ACHEBE’S THINGS FALL APART

Aedin Ní Loingsigh

REWRITING AND ORIGINAL WRITING: CULTURE CLASHES, TRAUMA, AND EMERGING DISCOURSES IN GIANNINA BRASCHI’S UNITED STATES OF BANANA

 Laureano Corces

PART III MIRRORING IRISH HISTORY

REWRITING HISTORICAL TRAUMA: JOHN MONTAGUE AND PAUL DURCAN AS TWO FIGURES OF THE IRISH BARD

Cathy Roche-Liger

NEGOTIATING THE SCARRED LANDSCAPE OF ULSTER: POST-CONFLICT PHOTOGRAPHY IN NORTHERN IRELAND

Valérie Morisson

WRITING AND REWRITINGS OF THE IRISH RURAL LANDSCAPE IN GARAGE (2007) AND THE FIFTH PROVINCE (1997)

Estelle Epinoux

REWRITING THE NORTHERN IRISH POLITICAL CONFLICT ON SCREEN IN DIVORCING JACK:  A PARODY OF THE TROUBLES

Cécile Bazin