Les Ombres du Temps: Jules Michelet, Romain Rolland, Pascal Quignard Pubblico

Abstract

Les Ombres du Temps: Jules Michelet, Romain Rolland, Pascal Quignard

In my doctoral dissertation, Les Ombres du Temps: Jules Michelet, Romain Rolland, Pascal Quignard, I analyze literature and its vexed relationship with history, using a selection of literary texts by authors from three different time periods (the first half of the nineteenth century, the beginning of the twentieth century, and the end of the twentieth century to the present-day).

I show how Jules Michelet (1798-1874), Romain Rolland (1866-1944) and Pascal Quignard (1948-) endeavor, each in his own way, to reanimate and inscribe anonymous and marginalized individuals forgotten by history. I examine these writers' diversity of motives in their efforts to avoid oblivion, their attempts to use traces from the past as a way to reflect on forgetting and death, and the writing strategies they utilize. These authors each have a unique role and mission of their own. Michelet, who thinks himself a magus and has faith in progress, participates in the romantic elaboration of the myth of the people and the witch. Rolland, seeing himself as a secretary of time, imagines a realistic inscription of his ancestors in order to prevent the repetition of history. Quignard, presenting himself as an antiquarian, creates an ideal collection based on his conception of the Roman world in order to turn away from our contemporary time exhausted by history.

In my introduction, I show, from diverse meanings of the word ombre (shadow) and expressions containing this word, the complexity of the figure of shadows,. In the first chapter, I study how the three writers depict shadows through their appearance and behavior, and how they are magi capable of illuminating shadows. The second chapter is a study of the fluidity of shadows: their changing nature and their various movements render their encounters with the writers arduous, unless the writers wander to find shadows. Only hybrid texts seem to suit the fluid nature of shadows. In the last chapter, I compare how the writers transform themselves into witnesses who honor the memory of the forgotten with feasts that are shared with the reader.

Table of Contents

Sommaire Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1

Chapitre 1. Écrivains mages : l'éclairage à la chandelle .......................................................... 25

La physionomie des ombres .......................................................................................................... 25 Le comportement des ombres ....................................................................................................... 45 L'éclairage des mages ................................................................................................................... 53

Chapitre 2. Fluidité des ombres et errances ............................................................................. 89

Ombres et mouvements ................................................................................................................ 89 Promenades ................................................................................................................................... 90 Des rencontres merveilleuses ...................................................................................................... 105 Fluidité des ombres, fluidité des écritures .................................................................................. 121

Chapitre 3. Écrivains passeurs : le banquet ........................................................................... 133

Les témoins ................................................................................................................................. 133 Le banquet .................................................................................................................................. 160 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 187 Bibliographie ............................................................................................................................. 194

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	French
Degree	PhD
Submission	Dissertation
Language	French
Research Field	Literature, General History, European Literature, Modern
Parola chiave	shadow witness memory
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Bonnefis, Philippe, Emory University
Committee Members	Nouvet, Claire, Emory University Margel, Serge, Université de Lausanne Bennington, Geoffrey, Emory University

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