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83.More information
Social Status and Spatial Position. The Social Geography of the Parisian Literary Field at the End of the Nineteenth Century.At the end of the nineteenth century, space in Paris bore strongly demarcated characteristics which varied from one neighborhood to another. This circumstance influenced where people in different fields of endeavor decided to live and the way they functioned in them. For example, an examination of the Parisian literary field at this period shows that writers, in choosing a residence, selected locations within the city's social space which corresponded to their positions in the field, these latter varying from proximity to the dominant pole, through the intermediate sector, to the dominated pole. The dominant pole was situated in the western part of the city, the intermediate sector in the ninth « arrondissement », near the « Boulevards », and the avant-garde in the outlying districts and in the Latin Quarter. This correspondence, which played a role in orienting literary strategies and in making writers conscious of their positions in the field and with respect to the different groups of the ruling class, can be explained by the localization of the institutions which selected the writers in accord with these positions. The writers close to the dominant pole were recruited through the « salons », a means of legitimation sponsored by the dominant group of the ruling class, this institution provided access to academic posts and prominent positions (e.g on the major literary reviews). Members of the intermediate sector gathered near the newspapers and the "boulevard" theaters, which were an important source of income for them. Finally the avant-garde was limited to the intellectual pole where the producers of the minor reviews were the same as the consumers. The spatial trajectories of the members of the main literary schools psycho ogical naturalist symbolist show how ,by means of this network of relations, link was established between literary strategies and social trajectories.
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84.More information
Jean-Bruno Renard : Belief in Extraterrestrials : a lexicological approach. Appearing in France in the middle of the nineteenth century, the word « extraterrestrial » has undergone a semantic and lexical development which bears witness to some change in the western way of looking at the heavens. Four uses can be distinguished chronologically. First of all, a politico-religious meaning revealed in the works of Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Huysmans. Then a materialist meaning, still retaining strong spiritualistic connotations in authors or scholars such as Flammarion or Charles Cros, in keeping with their belief in higher beings on other planets. Scientific and materialistic uses of the word are found at the end of the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth centuries, when it comes to mean simply « external to the earth ». Towards the middle of the twentieth century the word also becomes a noun and from that time on, designates the inhabitants of other planets. While keeping a materialist meaning, it is once again charged with religious significance, as shown in modern mythologies concerning ufo's and those « touched » by Extraterrestrials.
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85.More information
Tolstoj is dead…’ A Worldwide Event and its Impact in FranceTolstoj’s death created a considerable international stir which has undoubtedly been facilitated by the development of modern means of communication and by the dramatic circumstances of his death and the announcement, shortly before, of his sudden departure from Yasnaya Polyana. But neither the exceptional importance of his literary work, nor his radical interpretation of the Christian message are sufficient to explain this phenomenon. Above all, his late literary works, and particularly Resurrection, in which the preacher and the famous writer are mingled, have made of his message the incarnation of the feelings of unrest and anxiety of the end of the XIXth century. The article insists on the particular echoe of his death in France, a country which played an important part in the distribution of the complete works of the writer, and where the homage to Tolstoj has given the opportunity to the ‘ Franco-Russian Alliance’ to show some hostility towards Tsarism.
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86.More information
To any reader, as learned as he or she could be, the « fin de siècle » period, in France and Britain, is a very surprising period. Indeed, when art and literature are fascinated by androgyny, it could be considered as a strange paradox that they put forth at the same time a virulent misogyny. This paradox has been noticed and described but has never been explained away. Yet, if the androgynous ideal and the misogynistic discourse belong to different fields - the former to the field of pictural representation and the latter to the field of literature - one should ask how and why a figure who can be interpreted as a figure of reconciliation of the opposites can match with a discourse which exasperates them even more.
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This article focuses on the recurring presence of the dog figure in postcolonial literature – and more specifically on its use by African Francophone writers. The various connotations attached to the dog – understood in the literal as well as in the figurative sense – build a constellation of unstable patterns, and frequently interact with the contemporary revival of a cynical posture. The closer reading of two novels by Patrice Nganang and Fiston Mwanza Mujila allows us to follow the unfolding of a canine leitmotiv and the simultaneous questioning of the postcolonial identity in a context of globalised cynicism.
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88.More information
This article analyses the critical thoughts of Maupassant and Mallarmé on the situation of literature in opposition with the newspaper industry at the end of the 19th century. The decision to compare these writers, contemporary but rarely associated, is determined both by their knowledge of each other's works, and by the different choices they made facing the growing field of the press. Both well known in the literary field at the time, opposite in style and aesthetic choices, they questioned the evolving conditions of creation, both on the production side (competition of the press, quantitative overproduction and devaluation of literary writings, significant power of the legitimate institutions such as the Academy) and the reception side (alphabetization, increase of reading people). In view of this context, their positions, as they appear in their literary, critical and journalistic works, diverged not only for the choice of specific material configurations but also for reading patterns and functions of the book. Maintaining a discrete but thoughtful dialog, they tried to imagine the future of literature by taking into account the growing shade of the newspaper.
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