Wednesday 30th November - Marine Roussillon (Worcester College, Oxford)


Usages politiques des récits : raconter le passé médiéval au 17e siècle


Marine Roussillon


17.00-18.30
St John's College, New Seminar Room
(wine, nibbles and Christmas treats provided)

Ex Libris: Denis Salvaing de Boissieu 

Paper and Discussion

Marine Roussillon, Junior Research Fellow at Worcester College, was our guest speaker for this term’s final session. Her paper explored how the Middles Ages was conceived and deployed in seventeenth-century French writing, focusing in particular on the political value of its uses. Using a number of texts (including discourses about the writing of history, descriptions of fêtes organised in honour of Louis XIV and examples of genealogy), Marine analysed notions of plaisir and vérité in relation to the purpose, validity and success of these references to the past—employed, or appropriated, to promote the King’s glory. Marine’s paper met with an enthusiastic response from all present. Questions included queries about her corpus; how narratives conceiving of the Middle Ages relate to the nouvelle historique or histoire secrète; the role of allegory in these récits; and how the Middle Ages might be employed for moral ends, or polemical ones.

Many thanks to Marine for such an inspiring and thought-provoking presentation. It was a really excellent way to end this term’s seminar series. And many thanks to the participants both at this session and all the previous ones for their commitment, engagement and contributions. We look forward to seeing you next term!

Abstract

Y a-t-il un pouvoir des récits ? Cette communication posera la question des usages politiques des lettres au 17e siècle à partir d'exemples de textes racontant le passé médiéval. L'étude d'une généalogie fictive permettra de poser la question de ce qui fait l'efficacité politique des récits : le récit du passé fonctionne-t-il comme une preuve, dans une logique juridique, ou bien suscite-t-il un autre type d'adhésion ? En observant la manière dont la monarchie utilise les récits dans le cadre de la politique de la gloire, on pourra se demander ce qui fait l'efficacité de cette construction narrative du pouvoir. Enfin, les éditions savantes de récits médiévaux qui apparaissent au début du 18e siècle seront l'occasion d'une réflexion sur l'histoire des rapports entre la valeur littéraire des récits et leur efficacité politique.

Marine Roussillon is a Junior Research Fellow and Lecturer in early modern French at Worcester College. She has just finished her Dphil on "Plaisir et Pouvoir. Usages des récits chevaleresques à l'âge classique (1600-1750)", dealing with reception of the Middle Ages in early modern France, and political uses of representation of the past and story-telling, particularly in the context of the restructuring of the nobility.

Wednesday 16th November - Alain Ausoni (Lincoln College) and Sam Ferguson (New College)

JOINT SESSION: FRANCOPHONE LIFE WRITING
17:00 - 18.30, St John’s College, New Seminar Room 
(Wine and nibbles provided) 

Papers and Discussion
Week 6 saw the first double session of the year, with two papers exploring the theme of Francophone Life Writing. Alain Ausoni, a third year DPhil student in French at Lincoln College, opened the proceedings with a paper examining the translingual autobiographies of Nancy Huston and Vassilis Alexakis. Alain analysed the phenomenon of ‘autotraduction’ in the work of both autobiographers, focusing in particular on the revisions and transformations that inevitably occur when an author translates a work written in a second language back into his or her native tongue. Alain’s paper was followed by a presentation from Sam Ferguson, a third year DPhil student in French at New College, exploring the publication and reception of the journal intime in France (1880 - 1939) through the prism of real and fictional diaries in the work of André Gide. A lively discussion followed in which participants raised questions concerning the relationship between publisher and intended audience, the degree to which Gide anticipated the publication of his own diaries, the political dimension of choosing to write in French, and the implications of ‘autotraduction’ for literary prizes.

Once again, thanks to all for the huge turnout and a special thanks to those who came for the post-seminar dinner in Pierre Victoire! 






L’autobiographie translingue comme autotraduction
Alain Ausoni

Marc Chagall, Paris Through the Window (Paris par la fenêtre), 1913. © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

Abstract
Dans l’avant-propos de Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited (1967), Vladimir Nabokov évoque la genèse autotraductive tortueuse de la version finale de son autobiographie en ces termes : ‘The re-Englishing of a Russian re-version of what had been an English re-telling of Russian memories in the first place, proved to be a diabolical task, but some consolation was given to me by the thought that such multiple metamorphosis, familiar to butterflies, had not been tried by any human before’ (Nabokov 2000: 10). Ces métamorphoses multiples, Vassilis Alexakis et Nancy Huston les ont aussi provoquées en pratiquant l’écriture de soi en langue étrangère, puis en autotraduisant leurs textes du français vers leur langue maternelle. Par l’étude de quelques caractéristiques des versions de Paris-Athènes (1989/1993) et de Nord perdu (1999/2002), on se demandera ce que l’autotraduction fait à l’autobiographie translingue.

Alain Ausoni is a third year D.Phil in French (Lincoln College). In his thesis, provisionally entitled ‘In other words: translingual autobiographies in French’, he explores a corpus of life narratives written in French as a foreign language.

The Journal Intime: From Document to Literary Œuvre in André Gide's Hybrid Works

Sam Ferguson

Abstract

André Gide's career forms a bridge between two points in the history of the journal intime in France: the 1880s, in which the form achieved popularity and success (if not critical acclaim) principally for its documentary interest with the diaries of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Marie Bashkirtseff and the Goncourt brothers, and its consecration as a literary genre in 1939 with the publication of Gide's own Journal 1889-1939, the first volume of any living author to be published in Gallimard's prestigious Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Gide and other authors published excerpts from their diaries throughout these fifty years, but these alone fail to account for the subsequent change in the way published diaries were presented and read. I propose that, just as for autobiography, the journal intime's development as a genre involves fictional and hybrid forms as well as its 'real' form. Three works by Gide demonstrate this process, each of which combines elements of reality and fiction in an innovative use of the journal intime: Les Cahiers d'André Walter (1891), Paludes (1895) and the writing project which unites Les Faux-monnayeurs and Le Journal des faux-monnayeurs (1926). These works foreground different literary possibilities of the journal intime, and effectively teach readers new ways of approaching them. They therefore simultaneously provide a literary context for the Journal 1889-1939, and create a readership that is ready to appreciate it as a literary œuvre.

Sam Ferguson read Classics and French at New College, Oxford, and is now in the third year of a DPhil, still at New College, writing a thesis entitled 'Diaries Real and Fictional in Twentieth-Century French Writing'. This work follows the history of the diary as a published form, including fiction, nonfiction and various combinations of the two, through the work of André Gide, Raymond Queneau, Roland Barthes and Annie Ernaux.

Wednesday 2nd November - Pauline Souleau (Merton College, Oxford)

Jean Froissart's Chroniques and the Black Prince's Aquitaine (1355-1376)

Pauline Souleau 

17:00 - 18.30
St John’s College

(Wine and nibbles provided) 

Bataille de Poitiers,  © CNRS

Paper and discussion

Pauline opened her paper with a comprehensive definition of Gasconnade and a detailed description of the political and social context of Jean Froissart’s Chroniques. Through close reading of different manuscripts, as well as analysis of Froissart’s rewriting of Le Bel’s Chroniques, Pauline addressed questions surrounding Gascon identity, historiography and notions of chivalry. She argued that the portrayal of the Black Prince was more complex than has previously been suggested, revealing the darker aspects of the chivalric tradition. A lively discussion followed, with questions relating to genre, historiography, rewriting of texts and typical representations of chivalry. Thanks to all the participants for their engagement and to Pauline for her excellent and thought-provoking paper!

Abstract

In the fourteenth and fifteenth century, the south west of today's France – at the time named Aquitaine, Gascony or Guyenne – was often at the heart of the Anglo-French conflict commonly referred to as the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453). Jean Froissart's Chroniques relate the conditions, early stages and first decades of the conflict from 1322 to 1400. He devoted a non-negligible amount of his work to the events unfolding in the region and, in particular, to the military campaigns and rule in Aquitaine of Edward of Woodstock (1330-1376) – later called the 'Black Prince' – prince of Wales (1343-1376) and Aquitaine (1362-1372). 
This paper offers an analysis of Jean Froissart’s account of Edward of Woodstock's campaigns and authority in Aquitaine through a comparative reading of the different versions of Froissart's Chroniques and other contemporary works – Jean le Bel's chronicles, Cuvellier's Chanson de Betrand du Guesclin or Chandos Herald's Life of the Black Prince. With this study, I intend to show that the passage sheds light on the chronicler's perception of the region and its people, as well as to discuss the notion of an anglo-gascon identity, and to challenge a Manichean conception of Froissart's chivalric ideology through his vision of the Black Prince.

Pauline Souleau did her undergraduate degree in English Studies and her Master's degree in Medieval Studies in La Sorbonne-Paris IV, studying "Eleanor of Aquitaine's literary influence" for her dissertation under the supervision of Prof. Leo Carruthers. She is a second year D.Phil. candidate in Medieval and Modern Languages, supervised by Dr. Sophie Marnette. Her research focuses on medieval Aquitaine and particularly on "Truth and fiction. Gascony, Jean Froissart's Chroniques and other chronicles of the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453)" (thesis title).

Wednesday 19th - Garance Auboyneau (Magdalen College, Oxford)

Myth and stereotype : the Histoire des favorites by Anne de La Roche-Guilhen as a test-case

Garance Auboyneau

17:00 - 18.30
St John’s College

FOLLOWED BY WELCOME DRINKS

Histoire des favorites 1697

Paper and Discussion 


Garance began her paper with a précis of Anne de La Roche-Guilhen's collection of nouvelles, Histoire des Favorites. In the book, each nouvelle is centred on the life of a particular royal or papal 'favorite' (or mistress) and accompanied, depending on the edition of the text, by a corresponding portrait (see above for an example). After an analysis of a selection of these images, Garance sketched the political, social, and religious context of the collection and discussed the relationship between stereotypes of favourites and the 'official' mythopoeia of the Roi-Soleil, Louis XIV. An enthusiastic discussion followed, in which issues such as La Roche-Guilhen's fictional and non-fictional sources, historical parallels of the text in England, the place of male 'favoris', and the distinction between 'myth' and 'stereotype' were raised by the seminar participants.  


The session was followed by a wine reception to welcome this year's new faces. Thanks to all for the high turnout and to Garance for her enthusiastically received paper! 


Abstract

According to Ruth Amossy, in "Idées Reçues", myths are not eternal, but historical.  Stereotypes can become myths, but myths can also become stereotypes. The "Histoire des favorites", by the prolific Huguenot writer Anne de La Roche-Guilhen (1644-1707), seems to corroborate this claim.

Anne de La Roche-Guilhen's Histoire des Favorites stages royal mistresses, or "favorites", from the past, and describes the loves of many monarchs, from kings, to sultans, and popes. This collection inherits from the tradition of Boccaccio's "Famous Women" and its structure and stories are often close to those of Madame de Villedieu's "Annales Galantes". At the same time, the Histoire des Favorites is a fiercely satirical book criticizing, like many Huguenot pamphlets, Rome and the absolute monarchy. Most importantly, the Histoire des Favorites is the first book to establish, in its very title, the "favorite" as a generic term – a category likely to allow stereotypes. 

If there is indeed a myth of the "favorite", created through the representation of Louis XIV's loves, Anne de La Roche-Guilhen refuses to take part in it, and this paper aims to show that her input is determinative in the evolution of the figure of the "favorite". I propose to question the way in which La Roche-Guilhen's characters – sometimes good, often evil, always beautiful –  allow for a stereotypical construction of the "favorites" which, in turn, provides a foundation for political and religious discourses.

Garance Auboyneau is a third year D. Phil. candidate in Medieval and Modern Languages, at Magdalen College, University of Oxford. She is supervised by Prof. Alain Viala and Dr. Wes Williams and works on the representation of the “favorite” under the reign of Louis XIV; her thesis is entitled "Mises en scène de la favorite dans la littérature du Grand Siècle (1661-1715)".

garance.auboyneau at mod-langs.ox.ac.uk

Michaelmas 2011 Term Card

Term Card
Oxford French Graduate Seminar
Wednesday of even weeks 5-6.30 pm
St John’s College, Seminar Room C, 15 St Giles

Wednesday 19th October (2nd week)
Garance Auboyneau
Myth and Stereotype: the Histoire des favorites by Anne de La Roche-Guilhen as a test-case

Followed by drinks reception.


Wednesday 2nd November (4th week)
Pauline Souleau
Jean Froissart's Chroniques and the Black Prince's Aquitaine (1355-1376)

Wednesday 16th November (6th week)
Alain Ausoni
L'autobiographie translingue comme autotraduction

Sam Ferguson
The Journal Intime: From Document to Literary Œuvre in André Gide's
Hybrid Works

Wednesday 30th November (8th week)
Marine Roussillon
Usages politiques des récits : raconter le passé médiéval au 17e siècle