Écho des études romanes, 2022 (vol. 18), issue 2

Vœux et témoignages personnelsFrench

divers

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):9-41  

Vœux et témoignages personnels

L’art de Watteau, entre le naturel et l’artificielFrench

Watteau's art, between the natural and the artificial

Katalin BARTHA-KOVÁCS

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):45-56 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.010  

Based on the example of how Jean-Antoine Watteau's art appears in texts written by 18^th century authors, this study aims to show that in the painter’s work, the natural and the artificial are not opposite values. Watteau was interested in the representation of nature, but in his paintings, he transforms it into an imaginary and spectacular one. This paper intends to reveal how contemporary writings reflect this ambiguity: some of them (those written by authors who knew the artist personally) emphasise the fidelity of nature of his works, while others (dating mainly from the second half of the 18^th century)...

Cyrano – intellectuel, dandy, ascète : une réflexion en marge du mythe théâtral et de la vérité historiqueFrench

Cyrano - intellectual, dandy, ascetic: a reflection on the margins of the theatrical myth and historical truth

Jana TRUHLÁŘOVÁ

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):57-72 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.011  

The historical character of Cyrano de Bergerac and Edmond Rostand's play of the same name have been the subject of numerous analyses. On the one hand, there are theatrical and translational studies, on the other, especially since the 1970s, specialized studies reviving the writer long forgotten by literary history. Research on the relationship between the theatrical character and his historical model is rarer and has appeared only relatively recently. In our cultural environment, Czech and Slovak, it is mainly the play that resonates, but we also have some interesting historical reflections. Based on these, the article tries to unite these two visions,...

L’indécidable comme valeur esthétique de la décadence : le je ne sais quoi dans Monsieur de Phocas de Jean LorrainFrench

The undecidable as an aesthetic value of the decadence: the je ne sais quoi in Jean Lorrain's Monsieur de Phocas

Záviš ŠUMAN, Catherine ÉBERT-ZEMINOVÁ

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):73-85 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.012  

The paper examines a process of fin-de-siècle aesthetics, very present in Monsieur de Phocas by Jean Lorrain and consisting in erasing the boundaries between the categories and qualities of the sensible (sensibilia) and the intelligible (intelligibilia). Our analysis is based on the concept of difference, which brings it close to nescio quid and it intends to undertake a kind of anatomy of one of the vectors of the imagination and poetics of the selected era. It then offers an answer to the question of whether the constituent elements either of binary structures or of larger sets tie together a relationship of opposition...

Stereoscopie ungarettiane: In memoria e Roman cinéma, VItalian

Ungarettian stereoscopies: In memoria and Roman cinéma, V

Paolo DIVIZIA

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):87-95 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.013  

This paper deals with two poems by Giuseppe Ungaretti, one in Italian (In memoria) and one in French (Roman cinéma), stemmed from the very same fact: the death by suicide of an old friend of the poet, Mohammed Sceab, a poet himself, who destroyed all his works before committing suicide. A stereoscopic reading of the two poems will be carried out, and both the biographical context and textual elements will be taken into account.

« Sauf l’honneur du royaume ! » « Sauf l’honneur de Dieu ! » Tragédie de l’amitié et de la sainteté par Jean AnouilhFrench

"Save the honour of the kingdom!" "Save the honour of God!" A tragedy of friendship and sainthood by Jean Anouilh

Marie VOŽDOVÁ

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):97-109 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.014  

The paper deals with a thematic analysis of Becket ou l’Honneur de Dieu, a play written by the French playwright Jean Anouilh. It focuses on the development of a friendship between the protagonist, the future martyr and saint Thomas Becket, and the English king Henry II. The analysis shows the differences between each of the characters. It also demonstrates how emotionally cold Becket is and how fanatically he is dedicated to his principles. As a consequence of his behaviour, the initially close bond with the king transforms into hatred and a desire to kill. The author offers an unconventional perspective on the saint's life, relativizes...

Races et religions dans la poésie de Léopold Sédar SenghorFrench

Races and religions in Léopold Sédar Senghor's poetry

Papa Samba DIOP

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):111-118 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.015  

The article examines intertextuality in the work of Léopold Sédar Senghor through an analysis of his poem “Elegy for the Queen of Sheba”. The text is part of at least two religious traditions that the poet revisits, one Judeo-Christian and the other Islamic, which present the Queen of Sheba differently, but which converge on the figure of her mythical interlocutor, the King Solomon. Our analysis will also focus on the contribution of other (African) languages and religions to this Senghor's poem.

Psychopathologie de la vie quotidienne : Bohumil Hrabal et la psychanalyseFrench

Psychopathology of everyday life: Bohumil Hrabal and psychoanalysis

Josef FULKA

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):119-131 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.016  

The present paper is an attempt to deal with the complicated relationship between Bohumil Hrabal's writings and psychoanalysis. In the first part of the paper, the author concentrates on the explicit references to Freud in Hrabal's texts. These references seem to show that Hrabal's interest in the founder of psychoanalysis – mediated by surrealism – is concerned with Freud's particular interest in language and affectivity, resulting, in Hrabal, in a certain “therapeutic” view of literary writing. In the second part of the paper, this reading is extended to include certain Hrabalian motives that seem to surpass Hrabal's specific...

Un regard géocritique sur l’espace dans quelques romans de Christiane Singer et Sylvie GermainFrench

A geocritical view of space in some of Christiane Singer's and Sylvie Germain's novels

Václava BAKEŠOVÁ

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):133-143 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.017  

The paper deals with both theoretical and applied concept of geocritical analysis of space in literary works. The principle of geocritical analysis consists in the confrontation of two perspectives: the original and the external, foreign; both correcting and enriching each other. The resulting displayed space is born on the basis of a clash of different aspects. The geocritical view will focus on the works of two French authors at the turn of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, Christiane Singer and Sylvie Germain, whose spatial inspirations intersect in many ways. The authors try to cope with the relativity of the space that literary...

Nathanaël Dupré La Tour : Un phare précocement éteintFrench

Nathanaël Dupré La Tour: A headlight extinguished too soon

Jan ZATLOUKAL

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):145-155 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.018  

The paper presents the work and ideas of the prematurely deceased French philosopher and essayist, Nathanaël Dupré La Tour (1977-2013). The author of three essays, L’Instinct de conservation (2011), Au seuil du monde (2013) and posthumous Une année au foyer (2014), he ranks among the thinkers of conservatism developing his original version of “enlightened” and “prospective” conservatism. In his vision, he combines the tradition of Western conservative thinking (Burke, Chesterton) and the tradition of French spiritual literature (Bernanos, Péguy, Mounier) with the philosophical works of Central European...

« J’espère avoir été capable de lui donner son histoire. » Paradoxes et contraintes de la prise de parole des subalternesFrench

"I hope I was able to give him his story." Paradoxes and constraints of subordinates speaking out

Chiara MENGOZZI

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):157-175 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.019  

By deploying an approach at the crossroads of literary criticism, philosophy and sociology of literature, this article illustrates the intersubjective dynamics that make possible and structure the self-narration of migrants in the so-called host society: an endeavour that is always situated between choice and constraint, emancipation and violence. Most critics have interpreted migrant literature as a form of counter-narrative to the public discourse on migration where the migrant is either deprived of the possibility of first-person enunciation or incited to tell her story in order to justify her presence, to reassure the host community, and to satisfy...

Tout recommence en 2000. Réflexions sur le roman québécois récentFrench

Everything begins again in 2000. Reflections on the recent Quebec novel

Michel BIRON

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):179-191 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.020  

This article discusses certain aesthetic transformations that the Quebec novel has undergone in the last twenty years: the progressive “aesthetization” or textual inscription of the local literary institution, the “equality” of literary voices (i.e., the side-ling of high/low categories) and, most notably, the presence, in the novel, of a narrative discontinuity which appears to continue, often unconsciously, the “roman à l’imparfait” described by Gilles Marcotte in 1976. Comparing the novels of Marie-Claire Blais' Soifs cycle (begun in 1995) and her 1965 classic, Une saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel,...

Un imaginaire de la fin « américain » : une mort typiquement québécoiseFrench

An "American" imaginary of the end: a typically Québécois death

Jean-François CHASSAY

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):193-205 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.021  

This article poses the hypothesis of an increasingly important convergence in Quebec fiction in recent years between the imaginary of the end and the presence of the United States. Using a varied corpus, it shows how, contrary to the traditional myths associated with them (youth, novelty, modernity, etc.), the United States produces a deleterious universe when the junction is made with Quebec, both territorially and intertextually.

Récits de soi et tendances transculturelles dans la littérature québécoiseFrench

Self-narratives and transcultural tendencies in Quebec literature

Patrick IMBERT

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):207-216 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.022  

In the Americas, cultural identities have always been questioned. In Québec, many texts have emphasized that immigrants feel exiled and nostalgic. However, contemporary autobiographies and self-narratives by writers born outside of Canada, such as Gérard Étienne, Dany Laferrière, Kim Thúy, Laure Morali or Emmelie Prophète show that immigrants seek to actively participate in the dynamics of their host society. Thus, this article analyses how writers and their narrative doubles engage in cultural encounters and challenge monolithic perceptions of identity through transcultural creativity. We understand that literature is no longer a privileged...

De « Speak white » et « Speak what » jusqu’à « Schizophrénie linguistique » ou comment les littératures du Canada francophone et de Louisiane jonglent avec les langues officiellesFrench

From "Speak white" and "Speak what" to "Schizophrénie linguistique" or how the literature of French-speaking Canada and Louisiana juggles the official languages

Peter KLAUS

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):217-228 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.023  

The article offers a brief survey of the different solutions to the bilingual situation in Canada and the United States that Quebec, Acadian, Ontario, Manitoba and Louisiana literatures provide. The relationship with the dominant English language varies, in the texts, between regions. The literature thematizes linguistic conflicts according to the position and importance of one or the other language: between irony, parodic submission and aggression, between playfulness and caricature. Taking as a reference point the significant writers of the respective literatures, the course of the past half-century shows the difference between the majority presence...

Poétique de la mobilité dans la littérature québécoise contemporaineFrench

Poetics of mobility in contemporary Quebec literature

Adina BALINT

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):229-240 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.024  

This article argues that Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette's La Femme qui fuit (2015) and Catherine Mavrikakis' La Ballade d’Ali Baba (2014) do important work in illustrating how the Cultural Studies notion of “mobility” applies to contemporary literature in Quebec. By analyzing physical, symbolic and affective representations of mobility and by reflecting on the polyphony of writing, I show how these writers pull readers into participating in acts of encounter with the other and otherness, which are critical to renewing our perceptions of literature.

Exil et Appartenance : le rapport à l’Amérique dans la poésie québécoise de la « Révolution tranquille »French

Exile and Belonging: the relationship to America in Quebec poetry of the Quiet Revolution period

Józef KWATERKO

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):241-247 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.025  

This paper discusses different discursive issues dealing with the topic of America within the Québécois poetry of the Quiet Revolution period (1960-1970). In particular, we shall observe how the imaginary sense of belonging to American space changes from ideological and political approach (where the oxymoronic figure of “White Nigger” plays a central role) to the perception of otherness as a personal and more intimate experience implicated by the urban everyday context.

Hegel était-il un Canadien ? Aspects identitaires dans la réception nord-américaine du philosopheFrench

Was Hegel a Canadian? Aspects of identity in the North American reception of the philosopher

Eva VOLDŘICHOVÁ BERÁNKOVÁ

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):249-257 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.026  

The paper is dedicated to the role played by G. W. F. Hegel in the identity constructions of contemporary Canadians. After summarizing the Canadian reception of the German philosopher, the text analyses in more detail the thought of Charles Taylor, in particular his approach to Canadian multiculturalism confronted with Quebec interculturalism. Then, the French reception of Hegel is outlined and compared to the English-speaking tradition. Paradoxically enough, in Canada, Hegel is sometimes used to reinforce the federal principle and sometimes claimed as an authority to build a new strong Quebec, with its own tradition and legislation. However, regardless...

Une dystopie abhumaniste : le cas de J. D. Kurtness et de Christiane VadnaisFrench

An abhumanist dystopia: the case of J. D. Kurtness and Christiane Vadnais

Petr KYLOUŠEK

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):259-270 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.027  

The apocalyptic thread underlies the works of many Quebec writers, and more recently it runs through the dystopian theme that announces the dark future of man and civilisation. It is obvious that apocalypse and dystopia present the two sides of humanism which, in the wake of Christianity, sees man as a superior being, the one that opposes culture to nature. Is there an alternative to this dichotomous axiology? Some recent trends in dystopian literature seem to point the way by blurring or erasing the human component and establishing an abhumanist axiology where nature alone imposes the scale of values. What are the particularities of this specific...

Louise Dupré ou le déclin, la décadence, la reconstruction et la renaissanceFrench

Louise Dupré or decline, decadence, reconstruction and rebirth

Hana ROZLOZSNIKOVÁ

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):271-284 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.028  

The young history of Quebec society bears witness to the rapid pace of transformations brought about by the conditions for the inscription of an ancient culture on a new continent. Quebec society, now American, is detached from the European models that historically and linguistically gave birth to it. What interests us in this vast context is a reflection on the position and role of the poet, novelist, teacher, and essayist Louise Dupré who transcends Quebec borders. Indeed, her book Higher than the flames, written one year after the visit to the former extermination camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau, leads to the reconstruction and rebirth of...

Les univers de Dany Laferrière : Paris-romanFrench

Dany Laferrière's universes: Paris-novel

Květuše KUNEŠOVÁ

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):285-296 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.029  

In the novel Autoportrait de Paris avec chat (Boréal, 2018), Dany Laferrière, writer from the periphery, reaches the centre. The article is a questioning of the universe or rather the universes (and their centres) that Dany Laferrière creates in his texts. “My heart is in Port-au-Prince, my body in Miami and my soul in Montreal” – he said several times during interviews. The analysis of the novel Autoportrait de Paris avec chat questions Laferrière's relationship with Paris, which represents a new anchor point in his life. By considering Paris less a city than a “novel”, Dany Laferrière...

887 de Robert Lepage – constructions (auto-)biographiques et traductions intermédiatiques d’un récit de vieFrench

887 by Robert Lepage – (auto-)biographical constructions and intermedia transpositions of a life story

Hans-Jürgen LÜSEBRINK

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):297-307 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.030  

The article provides a succinct and detailed presentation of Robert Lepage's play 887 by placing it in 1) the context of the author's theatrical and filmic production; 2) the issues of the relationship between the macro- and microhistory; 3) the author's autofictional writing; 4) the details of the scenography that illustrate the close relationship between filmic and dramatic techniques.

Kuessipan de Naomi Fontaine : un regard extérieurFrench

Kuessipan by Naomi Fontaine: an external viewpoint

Zuzana MALINOVSKÁ

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):309-315 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.031  

The paper deals with the novel Kuessipan (2011) by Naomi Fontaine, a contemporary Quebec writer of Innu origin. This literary text, composed of autonomous narrative units, depicts the present and the past of the Innu nation, which was affected by the constraints of the Indian Act (1876). The objective of the paper is to demonstrate that Naomi Fontaine does not give an ethnic, stereotypical image of a minority dispossessed of its territory and its identity. Using effective literary devices, she captures the complexity and the contradictions of the life of the Innu, residing today on reserves. Her fragmentary writing reveals a lacunary knowledge...

La littérature franco-canadienne en langue tchèqueFrench

French-Canadian literature in Czech

Jovanka ŠOTOLOVÁ

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):319-331 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.032  

Czech readers have the opportunity to get to know Canadian literature written in French mostly thanks to unique editorial projects. If one is dependent on translations and Czech magazine or book editions, it is difficult to form a concrete picture of this literature. Even in today's globalized world, stereotypical ideas of what Canadian life and culture are like can persist. Yet in recent years, our debt to this literature seems to be diminishing. This is a credit to certain publishing houses, but also to some translators, journalists and, not least, university professors and literary theorists.

Jean Delisle : Notions d’histoire de la traductionFrench

Sára DVOŘÁKOVÁ

Écho des études romanes 2022, 18(2):333-334 | DOI: 10.32725/eer.2022.033  

Review of the monograph by Jean Delisle, Notions d´histoire de la traduction (Québec, Presses de l´Université Laval, 2021).