Littérature et Masturbation Público

Abstract

The incompletion of the French novelist Roger Martin du Gard's magnum opus, Le Lieutenant-colonel de Maumort, has been ascribed to the scale and complexity of the project. After the publication of the last volume of his huge epic Les Thibault at the onset of the Second World War, Martin du Gard worked for the last two decades of his life on the fictional memoirs of an old colonel secluded in his estate during the war.

One of the literary stakes involved in this introspective endeavor was to address the topic of sexuality, especially that of masturbation, as a key for psychological insight. However the failure to complete the novel suggests a question: is it possible for a literary text to address masturbation as a topic and not as a metaphor?

Martin du Gard's previous works give a partial answer. He had already shown his interest for the issue with the first two novels of the Thibault saga, which are centered around adolescent characters. The theme, although central, is treated in an oblique and discrete way, thanks to the ubiquitous figure of the masturbator.

What arises from Maumort's attempt to write an autobiographical account is quite different. The paradox of carefree sexual reminiscences layered with confessional discourse cannot be escaped. The return of pervasive childhood memories as masturbatory fantasies alludes to the impossible origination of memory and imagination.

How can a novel avoid questioning the relationship between literary creation and masturbatory fantasy ? That question is simply silenced in Maumort because its character never leaves adolescence, thus revealing that solitary pleasure is never a thing of the past, but an ever-present metaphor at the core of writing and reading.

Table of Contents

Prologue: «… un crâne en tous points semblable… »

I. Les Allusions des Thibault

II. Les Rêves de Charles Chevry

III. S'évader

IV. Une vieille obsession

V. La Route de Menneville

VI. Guérir !

VII. La Mare de la honte

Épilogue : « Nulla vox secuta est ! »

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	French
Degree	PhD
Submission	Dissertation
Language	French
Research Field	Literature, General Literature, Romance
Palavra-chave	Literature Roger Martin du Gard Masturbation Onanism
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Bonnefis, Philippe, Emory University
Committee Members	Strauss, Jonathan, Miami University Nouvet, Claire, Emory University Bennington, Geoffrey, Emory University

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