Of words and the world : referential anxiety in contemporary French fiction / David R. Ellison.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ellison, David R.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

French fiction--20th century--History and criticism--Theory, etc.

French fiction.

Experimental fiction, French--History and criticism.

Experimental fiction, French.

Reference (Philosophy) in literature.

Mimesis in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (211 pages)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1993.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Here David Ellison explores the problems encountered by France's best experimental authors writing between 1956 and 1984, when faced with the question: "What should my writing be about?" These years are characterized by the rise of the "new novelists," who questioned the representational function of writing as they created works of imagination that turned in upon themselves and away from exterior reality. It became fashionable at one point to affirm that literature was no longer about the world but uniquely about the words on a page, the signifying surface of the text. Ellison tests this assumption, showing that even in the most seemingly self-referential fictions the words point to the world from which they can never completely separate themselves. Through close readings Ellison examines the novels and theoretical writings of authors whose works are fundamental to our perception of contemporary French writing and thought: Camus, Robbe-Grillet, Simon, Duras, Sarraute, Blanchot, and Beckett. The result is a new understanding of the link between the referential function of literary language and the problematic of the ethics of fiction.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NOTE ON TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: METAMORPHOSES OF THE REFERENTIAL FUNCTION, 1956-1984

Chapter One. Vertiginous Storytelling: Camus's La Chute, 1956

Chapter Two. Reappearing Man in Robbe-Grillet's Topologie d'une cité fantôme, 1976

Chapter Three. Narrative Leveling and Performative Pathos in Claude Simon's Les Géorgiques, 1981

Chapter Four. The Self as Referent: Postmodern Autobiographies, 1983-1984 (Robbe-Grillet, Duras, Sarraute)

PART TWO: "PURE FICTION" AND THE INEVITABILITY OF REFERENCE

INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO

Chapter Five. Blanchot and Narrative

Chapter Six. Beckett and the Ethics of Fabulation

CONCLUSION

NOTES

WORKS CITED

INDEX

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [183]-192) and index.

ISBN:

9786612751677

9781400801923

1400801923

9781282751675

1282751670

9781400820870

1400820871

9781400811472

1400811473

OCLC:

705526945