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American Literature
Littérature du 19e siècle
The Language of Gesture: Melville's Imaging of Blackness and the Modernity of Billy Budd
Lire l'article de Klaus Benesch
In light of recent studies of both the life of black seamen and of the role of blacks in the Enlightenment, the paper discusses the representation of African sailors in the work of Herman Melville, in particular in his unfinished manuscript Billy Budd, Sailor. As I argue, Melville's imaging of a "noble" black sailor in the opening chapter is crucial to the author's ongoing attempt to untangle the complex relationship of race and modernity. By invoking a non-totalitarian, gestural/visual aesthetics of blackness Melville not only reinforces his earlier critique of modernity's foundation in slavery; he also revivifies and, simultaneously, trans-forms the eighteenth-century tradition of visualizing blacks as tragic witnesses to the para-doxes of the enlightenment. In so doing, Melville couches his argument against racism in a 'gestural' (black) critique of white judgments on blacks that may well be read to foreshadow later, more radical gestures of black pride from zoot-suiters to the raised fists of black pan-thers or the corporeal self-fashioning of the gangster rapper.
Littérature et société au 20e siècle
Littérature et société aux Etats-Unis : 1917-1968
Lire l'article d'Alice Béja
Cet article propose un regard sur la littérature américaine du 20e siècle dans son rapport à l'idée d'Amérique. Les guerres et crises que traversent les Etats-Unis au cours de la période 1917-1968 contribuent à une dégradation de l'"American Dream" en "American way of life" à laquelle les écrivains américains réagissent en recherchant de nouvelles origines pour construire, en fin de compte, leur propre idée d'Amérique.
Littérature et société aux Etats-Unis : extraits pour la classe
Extraits présentés par Alice Béja
En complément de son article "Littérature et société aux Etats-Unis : 1917-1968", Alice Béja nous propose ici une sélection d'extraits à exploiter en classe.
La voix de Lolita dans "Lolita", le roman de Vladimir Nabokov et le film de Stanley Kubrick
Lire l'article de Michaël Roy
La critique nabokovienne s'est beaucoup interrogée sur les modalités de la voix de Humbert Humbert, ses inflexions, ses excentricités, ses stratégies de séduction. C'est en effet par la voix du nympholepte, confesseur omnipotent, que nous parvient toute l'histoire de Humbert et Lolita. Il semble, à première lecture, que la jeune fille n'ait pas son mot à dire dans cette histoire ; objet de Humbert-personnage, elle devient objet du discours manipulateur de Humbert-narrateur. On peut malgré tout se demander si la voix de Lolita est véritablement engloutie par la parole de Humbert, ou bien si elle parvient au contraire à défier les assignations au silence de ce dernier. On tentera ici de « récupérer » la voix de Lolita dans le roman de Vladimir Nabokov (1955), tout en analysant la façon dont Stanley Kubrick s'accommode de cette problématique complexe de la voix et du silence dans son adaptation cinématographique (1962).
Publishing during the Harlem Renaissance
Lire l'article de Cécile Cottenet
This article proposes to present the American literary and publishing scene of the 1920s, that favored the publication of Langston Hughes's first two volumes of poetry, The Weary Blues (1926) and Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927). I will first attempt to define the Harlem Renaissance, its temporal boundaries and leading figures, before highlighting the particular nexus of magazine editors, white patrons and publishers, that contributed to the flowering of the New Negro movement.
Littérature contemporaine
An interview with Douglas Kennedy
Watch the interview (a transcript is available)
The Moment is a very personal book. I was writing this in the middle of a very difficult divorce which I wanted after 25 years but which was nonetheless hugely difficult and unpleasant. So in a way I was writing very much about keeping my own equilibrium in a difficult situation even though that does not come into the book. Sartre had a point when he said “l’enfer c’est les autres”, but the biggest hell on earth usually is yourself. The thing is that when you write you can control things. When I write I can punish the wicked, I can make things right or I can make things wrong. Generally I make things wrong if you know my books. I can pose all sorts of moral questions and I can determine how things turn out. That’s not life...
An interview with Nick Flynn
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I probably never answer any questions in my writings, I just ask more questions. The best scientists understand that what we know is just some tiny little fraction of reality. We understand almost nothing. There are vast forces and universes that are completely mysterious to us. It’s the same with our psyche. We just scratch at it, we just push the edge of the questions. That’s all I hope to do, to get to the edge of the unknown...
Marilynne Robinson - Assises Internationnales du Roman 2010
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Marilynne Robinson was invited to the fourth edition of the Assises Internationales du Roman, organised by the Villa Gillet and Le Monde. She was interviewed for La Clé des langues and read an extract from Gilead, a novel which was awarded the 2005 Pulitzer Prize.
DOSSIER - The Brooklyn Follies (Paul Auster)
Consulter le dossier de Jocelyn Dupont
Jocelyn Dupont a réuni autour de lui de nombreux spécialistes de Paul Auster pour constituer ce dossier qui apporte un éclairage complet sur l'oeuvre du célèbre romancier américain.
James Frey - Assises Internationales du Roman 2010
Listen to James Frey and learn about his conception of storytelling
James Frey was one of the guests of the Assises Internationales du Roman, organised by the Villa Gillet and Le Monde in Lyon. He introduced his novel Bright Shiny Morning and told the audience about his perception of Los Angeles and his conception of storytelling.
Dossier - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows)
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Nous vous proposons un dossier composé d'une lettre d'Annie Barrows, d'un extrait de l'oeuvre et de documents pour la classe. Ces ressources sont reproduites par l'aimable permission de la maison d'édition Random House.
Richard Russo - Assises Internationnales du Roman 2011
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Richard Russo won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize with his novel Empire Falls. In May 2011, he took part in the fifth edition of the Assises Internationales du Roman, organised by the Villa Gillet and Le Monde. He was kind enough to grant us an interview at the Hotel Carlton in Lyon.
Percival Everett - Assises Internationnales du Roman 2011
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In May 2011, Percival Everett took part in the fifth edition of the Assises Internationales du Roman, organised by the Villa Gillet and Le Monde. The author of Erasure and American Desert was kind enough to grant us an interview at the Hotel Carlton in Lyon.
Le théâtre US ultracontemporain
Voir la communication de Brigitte Gauthier
Le théâtre américain de la fin du 20e siècle est caractérisé par ses actions « hors bunker ». Au-delà des avant-gardes, il expérimente des formes de performances dans les rues, les parcs et les night clubs. Le théâtre devient à New York, the Scene, un monde de revendication ethniques et de libération sexuelle. La nouvelle frontière, c'est le hors les murs. Les enjeux politiques se radicalisent et un nouveau théâtre d'agit-propre s'empare du Net.
Nicholson Baker on his literary career and how he came to write about sex
I think the job of the novelist is to write about interesting things, including things that might not seem all that interesting at first glance – like, say, a lunch hour on an ordinary weekday – and to offer evidence that life is worth living. At least, that’s what I try to do – not always successfully. My first book was about a lunch hour – the second about sitting in a rocking chair holding a baby – the third about literary ambition. There was almost no sex in those three books. But I always wanted to be a pornographer – because after all sex is amazing and irrational and embarrassing and endlessly worth thinking about...
Jonathan Dee on the place of the novel in a money-driven society
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The last American to write meaningful fiction about the vast social canvas of economic inequality was John Dos Passos, whose own reputation (and work) suffered after he took a sharp turn toward the right wing in the late 1930s. Certainly conditions are more than ripe, in American art, for a new Dos Passos. One of the conditions which have changed since his time, however, is the condition of the novel itself, as it becomes, increasingly and ironically, associated with the notion of a cultural elite...
Nick Flynn on the misfit and the outcast
I wrote a memoir a few years ago (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City), which, in part, chronicled the five or six years my father spent living on the streets in Boston. I’d been a case-worker with the homeless for three years before he got himself evicted from his marginal living situation, ran out of options (he slept in his taxi, on friend’s couches) and eventually ended up at the shelter where I worked. I hadn’t grown up with him, I hadn’t met him, really, before he came into the shelter — that this is where I got to know him is in the Shakespearian realm of the unlikely coincidence that sets the play in motion...
Dans notre bibliothèque
Quelques suggestions de lecture, à découvrir dans notre rubrique Bibliothèque :
- Cormac McCarthy - Les romans du Sud-Ouest Florence Stricker
- Devant la chaise électrique Alice Béja (trad.)
- Ceci n'est pas une tragédie - L'écriture de David Markson Françoise Palleau-Papin
- The Brooklyn Follies Paul Auster
- The Discomfort Zone Jonathan Franzen
- The Good Life Jay McInerney
- Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close Jonathan Safran Foer
- The Bear Boy Cynthia Ozick
mise à jour le 27 août 2012
Créé le 24 mars 2009
ISSN 2107-7029
DGESCO Clé des Langues