French Studies is published on behalf of the Society for French Studies. The journal publishes articles and reviews spanning all areas of the subject, including language and linguistics (historical and contemporary), all periods and aspects of literature in France and the French-speaking world, thought and the history of ideas, cultural studies, film, and critical theory.
The journal's review section is unmatched in its breadth and its quality, providing prompt coverage of work published in French, English, German and Italian.
VOLUME 60, NUMBER 4, OCTOBER 2006
Articles :
- John Campbell : ROUND UP THE USUAL SUSPECTS: THE SEARCH FOR AN IDEOLOGY IN LA PRINCESSE DE CLÈVES
Abstract : This article considers various attempts to identify a clear structure of ideas, and their philosophical antecedents, in La Princesse de Clèves. These attempts arise naturally from the wide variations in interpretation that result from this novel's ambiguities. Many critics have made sense of the heroine's rejection of the man she loves by placing it in a religious framework, with roots in Augustinian/Jansenist thought, and thus in Neoplatonism. The influence of neo-Stoicism is also evident, for example in the mother's teaching and in her daughter's resistance to passion. However, these two currents of thought offer irreconcilable perspectives on free will. The situation is further complicated by the existence of an Epicurean dimension, in the value placed on prudence and on the retreat from emotional strife. Another element is Pyrrhonism, with its emphasis on the fragile basis of opinions and convictions. None of these ideologies offer an entirely persuasive explanation, yet they coexist uneasily. The difficulty of picking out totally convincing candidates from this identity parade necessarily leaves critics of this novel with questions as to the identity of our own hermeneutic endeavour.
- Luc Bonenfant : NOM PROPRE, POÉSIE ET GÉNÉRICITÉ: BERTRAND, RIMBAUD, VERHAEREN
Abstract: Cet article s'intéresse au fonctionnement générique du nom propre dans la poésie d'Aloysius Bertrand, Arthur Rimbaud et Émile Verhaeren. La première partie s'attache à la distinction éventuelle entre le fonctionnement narratif et le fonctionnement poétique du Nom propre à partir d'exemples fournis par la poésie en prose bertrandienne, poésie dont les états premiers ressortent des genres narratifs brefs. Suivant cela, la seconde partie de l'article envisage le fonctionnement du nom propre chez Rimbaud et Verhaeren, montrant bien que la poésie, pourtant un genre à faible densité onomastique, exacerbe la fonction sémantique du Nom plutôt que sa traditionnelle fonction narrative. Chez les trois poètes étudiés, la motivation sémantique du Nom ne se transforme pas en succession narrative, penchant plutôt vers cet espace absolu de ‘totalisation’ dont Jean Cohen a fait un critère de distinction poétique.
- Margaret Topping : ARTISTS AND ALCHEMISTS IN PROUST'S A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU
Abstract : This article explores the significance of a network of images drawn from the world of alchemy that is present as a persistent undercurrent in Marcel Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu. It is argued that alchemical images — of transmutation, crucibles and gold itself — provide emblematic markers, within the diegesis of the novel, for the narrator-protagonist's evolution to creation. These images encompass the full hierarchy of aspirations of the alchemist, from financial gain to the spiritual transcendence sought by the true initiate. Indeed, A la recherche charts a metaphorical progression from material to spiritual ideals. In tracing out the narrator-initiate's path, alchemical images draw in such key themes as art, society and desire, and encompass a very Proustian range of tones and effects, from the celebratory to the satirical. The article also aligns Proust as novelistic creator with the alchemist of style and perception who transmutes the base matter of observation and experience into gold. In this respect, Proust is situated in relation to a broader nineteenth-century artistic emphasis on transfiguration rather than imitation.
- Hector Kollias : JEAN GENET'S QUEER ORIGINS: A READING OF QUERELLE DE BREST
Abstract : This article engages with debates in queer theory by attempting to look beyond the dominant trend of constructionism and interrogating the possibility of queer origins in the work of Jean Genet. In a reading of his novel Querelle de Brest, I seek to demonstrate that queer is located less in the self-assumption of subjectivity and more in the act of queer sex bestowing its agents with a series of metonymically substitutable role positions. Utilizing resources from psychoanalysis, I argue that Genet's novel is not a homophobic fantasy but rather an empowering narrative whose focus on betrayal can be aligned with the psychoanalytic notion of perversion as disavowal, allowing both Genet to be recognized as a salutary queer writer, and psychoanalysis to be wrested from the hostility with which it is received in queer-theoretical circles.
- Anne-Louise Milne : FROM THIRD-WORLDISM TO FOURTH-WORLD FLÂNERIE? FRANÇOIS MASPERO'S RECENT JOURNEYS
Abstract : This article explores the transformation of 1960s internationalism into a preoccupation with urban relations in the increasingly international city of Paris as it is reflected in the work of François Maspero. It considers whether peripheral communities continue to be identified with the potential for social and political renewal, and charts the way in which Maspero structures his interaction with the suburban Other. It compares this interaction with the well-known pose of the flâneur, which is both intimately associated with Paris and more generally perceived as emblematic of a self-consciously modern way of negotiating the city. In so doing it assesses the political ambitions of Maspero's recent works and considers to what extent they continue a mode of militant intellectual action generally perceived to have ended in the wake of May 1968.
Reviews :
Françoise Le Saux - La Troisième Continuation du Conte du Graal Peter Noble - La Conquête de Constantinople: édition bilingue Virginie Greene - La Mort le roi Artu Keith Busby - La vengeance Raguidel Richard Trachsler - Le Roman de Gliglois: récit arthurien du XIIIe siècle Peter Noble - Melion and Biclarel: Two Old French Werewolf Lays Jelle Koopmans - Les Mystères de la procession de Lille John Parkin - Les Songes drolatiques de Pantagruel Madeleine Lazard - Lettres de femmes: textes inédits et oubliés du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle Jan Clarke - Théâtre et musique: dramaturgie de l'insertion musicale dans le théâtre français (1550–1680) Keith Cameron - Commentaires sur la Guerre civile de France: de la surprise de Meaux à la bataille de Saint-Denis (1567), avec un plan d'André Thevet. Paul White - La Néphélococugie; ou, La Nuée des cocus — Première adaptation des ‘Oiseaux’ d'Aristophane en français David McCallam - Sexing ‘La Mode’: Gender, Fashion and Commercial Culture in Old Regime France Michael Hawcroft - Dramaturgie de la tragédie en musique: 1673–1764 Ioana Galleron - Les Traductions de l'italien en français au XVIIIe siècle Robin Howells - Correspondance. Tome IX. 11 mars 1748–25 avril 1749. Lettres 1217–1390 Roger Little - Interpreting Colonialism Michael Harrigan - Voyage en Sibérie Nathalie Vuillemin - Raynal ou le devoir de vérité Richard A. Francis - Le Grand Concours: ‘Dissertation sur les causes de l'universalité de la langue française et la durée vraisemblable de son empire’ Helen Abbott - Versailles dans la littérature: mémoire et imaginaire aux XIXe et XXe siecles Mary Orr - Monomania: the Flight from Everyday Life in Literature and Art. Ceri Crossley - Correspondance d'Alphonse de Lamartine, Deuxième série. 1807–1829. Tome 3: 1820–1823 Lisa Downing - Method in Madness: Control Mechanisms in the French Fantastic Jacinta Wright - Lectures de ‘Consuelo, La Comtesse de Rudoltstadt’ de George Sand David Evans - Lettres à José-Maria de Heredia Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze - Poétiques de la discontinuité de 1870 à nos jours Kate Griffiths - Le Grand Transit Moderne: Mobility, Modernity and French Naturalist Fiction Sarah Capitanio - Naturalism Redressed: Identity and Clothing in the Novels of Émile Zola Floriane Place-Verghnes - A Further Selection of the ‘Chroniques’ of Guy de Maupassant Michael R. Finn - Monsieur Vénus: roman matérialiste • Monsieur Vénus: A Materialist Novel Michael G. Kelly - Marcel Schwob: conteur de l'imaginaire. Paul Cooke - The Tragic Tale of Claire Ferchaud and the Great War Victoria B. Korzeniowska - Jean Giraudoux Christopher Lloyd - Rebatet Christopher Prendergast - Everyday Life: Theories and Practices from Surrealism to the Present Mary Bryden - Maria Jolas, Woman of Action: a Memoir and Other Writings Robert Pickering - Vercors Ursula Tidd - ‘Le Deuxième Sexe’ de Simone de Beauvoir Alex Hughes - Writing Against Death: The Autobiographies of Simone de Beauvoir Mark Orme - Noces pour femme seule: le féminin et le sacré dans l'
uvre d'Albert Camus
Tom Conley - The Roman noir in Post-War French Culture.
Edmund J. Smyth - Le Nouveau Roman en questions, 3: Le Créateur et la Cité • Le Nouveau Roman en questions, 4: Situation diachronique
Ann Miller - Masters of the Ninth Art: Bandes Dessinées and Franco-Belgian Identity
David Bradby - Maximilian Kolbe
Andrew Rothwell - The Poetry of Louise Herlin: Modern French Poet
David Teh - Jean Baudrillard
Paul Hegarty - Jacques Derrida: Critical Thought
Mairéad Hanrahan - Hélène Cixous.
Sarah Cooper - Julia Kristeva.
Susan Harrow - Palimpsests of the Real in Recent French Poetry
Marja Warehime - Present Pasts: Patrick Modiano's (Auto)Biographical Fictions.
Ralph Sarkonak - Renaud Camus érographe
Paul Cooke - Trois études sur le roman de l'extrême contemporain: Marie NDiaye, Sylvie Germain, Michel Chaillou
Jean-Pierre Boulé - Lire le sida: témoignages au féminin
Emer O'Beirne - Michel Houellebecq
Kathryn Robson - Holocaust Monuments and National Memory-Cultures in France and Germany since 1989: The Origins and Political Function of the Vél d'Hiv in Paris and the Holocaust Monument in Berlin
Will McMorran - Le Dire de l'hospitalité
Thomas Wynn - Le Drame: du XVIe siècle à nos jours
Peter Hawkins - Jazz Adventures in French Culture
Catherine O'Brien - Modern French Literary Studies in the Classroom: Pedagogical Strategies
Sophie Marnette - Temporalité et attitude: structuration du discours et expression de la modalité
P. M. Sewell - Précis de conjugaison
Chantal Gagnon - Versus: la version réfléchie