عنوان

The commitment to scandal in French post-War fiction (1945-1950) through the works of Marcel Aymé, Jean Genet and Roger Nimier

Number

TLets810853

Title Proper

The commitment to scandal in French post-War fiction (1945-1950) through the works of Marcel Aymé, Jean Genet and Roger Nimier

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Feutrie, Anne-Celia

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Royal Holloway, University of London

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2015

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Thesis (Ph.D.)

Text preceding or following the note

2015

Text of Note

This thesis studies a period of historical transition (1945-1950) and proposes to use scandal as a critical tool to account for the ambiguity of the immediate post-war period in literature. As set out in pragmatic sociology, scandal is understood to involve a test to the stability of values through a public act of denunciation. While this research project makes a new contribution to the study of fiction as a powerful and reactive 'vecteur de mémoire' (Rousso 1987), its focus is on exploring the notion of fiction as an ethical space where disputes (controversies, violence, affairs and, importantly, scandals) are represented, organised, controlled and sometimes resolved within the space of the novel. This thesis reframes this question of the role of literature in a period of transition by revisiting the historiographical claim that some aspects of Vichy and the Occupation were rarely discussed in France before 1968. Instead, it suggests that the fictional production in the immediate post-war years attests to a readiness and commitment to narrate and organise dissent. To explore these issues, the thesis focuses on three major, contrasting writers - Marcel Aymé, Jean Genet and Roger Nimier - all of whom have in common to have explicitly, deliberately and problematically represented the Occupation and the Liberation in 1945-1950 novels. Chapter I reveals and explores the convergence of a popular and critical interest for scandal between 1945-1950 and the subsequent presence of scandal in historiographical discourse ever since. Chapter II identifies 'scales of scandal', namely the mechanism of narrative scandal at lexical, stylistic and structural levels. 4 Chapter III shows how time and space constitute the a priori conditions of scandal and how they become scandalised in the process. Chapter IV systematically analyses the thematic uncertainty and ethical undecidability brought about by scandal affecting notions of morality, authority and identity. The thesis concludes with reflections on the novel as ethical space and the critical potential of scandal in literary studies.

French post-war fiction; Marcel Ayme´; Jean Genet; Roger Nimier; pragmatics; pragmatic sociology; Scandal; Sade; Noir; morality; ethics

Royal Holloway, University of London

Royal Holloway, University of London

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y