Generic transformations of the autobiography in the work of Annie Ernaux ; Autobiografinio žanro pokyčiai Annie Ernaux kūryboje
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VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE Inga Litvinavi čien ė GENERIC TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN THE WORK OF ANNIE ERNAUX Summary of Doctoral Dissertation Humanities, Philology (04H) Kaunas, 2007 The dissertation will be defended at Vytautas Magnus University as an extern. The right of the joint doctoral studies was accorded to the Vytautas Magnus University and Institute of the Lithuanian Language on July 15, 2003 according to the decree of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania No. 926. Research consultant: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Irena Buckley (Vytautas Magnus University, Humanities, Philology – 04 H) The dissertation will be defended before the Council of Philological Sciences of Vytautas Magnus University and the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, Kaunas: Chair: Prof. Habil. Dr. Raminta Gamziukait ė (Vytautas Magnus University, Humanities, Philology – 04 H) Members: Prof. Habil. Dr. Regina Koženiauskien ė (Vilnius University, Humanities, Philology 04 H) Assoc. Prof. Dr. Genovait ė Dru čkut ė (Vilnius University, Humanities, Philology 04 H) Assoc. Prof.
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| Publié par | vytautas_magnus_university |
| Publié le | 01 janvier 2008 |
| Nombre de lectures | 36 |
| Langue | English |
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GENERIC TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN THE WORK OF ANNIE ERNAUX
VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE Inga Litvinavičienė Summary of Doctoral Dissertation Humanities, Philology (04H)
Kaunas, 2007
The dissertation will be defended at Vytautas Magnus University as an extern. The right of the joint doctoral studies was accorded to the Vytautas Magnus University and Institute of the Lithuanian Language on July 15, 2003 according to the decree of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania No. 926. Research consultant: Assoc. Prof. Dr.Irena Buckley(Vytautas Magnus University, Humanities, Philology 04 H) The dissertation will be defended before the Council of Philological Sciences of Vytautas Magnus University and the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, Kaunas: Chair: Prof. Habil. Dr.Raminta Gamziukaitė(Vytautas Magnus University, Humanities, Philology 04 H) Members: Prof. Habil. Dr.Regina Koeniauskienė(Vilnius University, Humanities, Philology 04 H) Assoc. Prof. Dr.GenovaitėDručkutė (Vilnius University, Humanities, Philology 04 H) Assoc. Prof. Dr.Asija Kovtun(Vytautas Magnus University, Humanities, Philology 04 H) Assoc. Prof. Dr.Rūta Eidukevičienė (Vytautas Magnus University, Humanities, Philology 04 H) Opponents: Prof. Habil. Dr.NijolėKaelionienė(Vilnius Pedagogical University,Humanities, Philology 04) Assoc. Prof. Dr.Vilius Leonavičius( Vytautas Magnus University, Social Sciences, Sociology 04 S) The defense of the dissertation will be open to the public. It is to be held at a public meeting of Council of Philological Sciences of the Vytautas Magnus University and the Institute of the Lithuanian Language at 11 a.m. on February 15, 2008 in M. Gimbutienėauditorium 211, Donelaičio 52, Vytautas Magnus University. Address: Donelaičio 58, LT 44248, Kaunas, Lithuania. Phone: (8-37) 222739 , fax: (8-37) 203858. The summary of the doctoral dissertation was sent out on January 10, 2008. Those interested may acquaint themselves with the doctoral dissertation in M. Mavydas National Library and the Library of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language in Vilnius, as well as in Vytautas Magnus University Library in Kaunas.
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VYTAUTO DIDIOJO UNIVERSITETAS LIETUVIŲKALBOS INSTITUTAS
Inga Litvinavičienė
AUTOBIOGRAFINIO ANRO POKYČIAI ANNIE ERNAUX KŪRYBOJE
Daktaro disertacijos santrauka Humanitariniai mokslai, filologija (04H)
Kaunas, 2007
Disertacija ginama eksternu Vytauto Didiojo universitete. Doktorantūros teisėsuteikta Vytauto Didiojo universitetui kartu su Lietuviųkalbos institutu Lietuvos Respublikos Vyriausybės 2003 m. liepos 15 d. nutarimu Nr. 926. Mokslinis konsultantas: Doc. dr.Irena Buckley(Vytauto Didiojo universitetas, humanitariniai mokslai, filologija 04 H) Disertacija ginama Vytauto Didiojo universiteto ir Lietuviųkalbos instituto Filologijos mokslųkrypties taryboje: Pirmininkas: Prof. habil. dr.Raminta Gamziukaitė (Vytauto Didiojo universitetas, humanitariniai mokslai, filologija 04 H) Nariai: Prof. habil. dr.Regina Koeniauskienė(Vilniaus universitetas, humanitariniai mokslai, filologija 04 H) Doc. dr.Genovaitė Dručkutė(Vilniaus universitetas, humanitariniai mokslai, filologija 04 H) Doc. dr.Asija Kovtun(Vytauto Didiojo universitetas, humanitariniai mokslai, filologija 04 H) Doc. dr.Rūta Eidukevičienė (Vytauto Didiojo universitetas, humanitariniai mokslai, filologija 04 H) Oponentai: Prof. dr. NijolėKaelionienė(Vilniaus Pedagoginis universitetas, humanitariniai mokslai, filologija 04 H) Doc. dr.Vilius Leonavičius(Vytauto Didiojo universitetas, socialiniai mokslai, sociologija - 04 S) Disertacija bus ginama vieame Vytauto Didiojo universiteto ir Lietuviųkalbos instituto Filologijos mokslo krypties tarybos posėdyje 2008 metųvasario mėn. 15 d. 11 val. Vytauto Didiojo universiteto Humanitariniųmokslųfakulteto M. Gimbutienės auditorijoje Donelaičio 52- 211. VDU adresas: Donelaičio 58, LT 44248, Kaunas, Lietuva. Tel.: (8- 37) 222 739, faksas: (8- 37) 203858. Disertacijos santrauka isiųsta 2008 m. sausio mėn. 10 d. Disertacijągalima periūrėti Nacionalinėje M. Mavydo, Lietuviųkalbos instituto bibliotekose Vilniuje bei Vytauto Didiojo universiteto bibliotekoje Kaune.
1. Introduction
French literature of the last decades presents various changes that convey both a sense of the post modern condition in French literature and give rise to texts difficult to interpret from the generic perspective. The sheer variety of these changes is evident in the many abstract labels used to define contemporary works of literature, for instance "autofiction", "literature minimaliste", "nouveau lyrisme" "écriture blanche" "contemporanéité extrême"1and others. new terms are often used to designate The formal changes characteristic of contemporary French writing which point to strategies employed by the authors to highlight the complex inner world of contemporary man or penetrate beyond what is known to areas of sensory or non-sensory experience that have remained practically untouched, including the .ambiguities inherent in man's social existence. A sense of the complexity of the human world is often obtained by interconnecting in the same text a variety of literary tendencies, in other words by playing with literary traditions and in the process modifying these same traditions. Among the many recent tendencies in French literature, critics discern a return to traditional forms of narrative (A. Kibedi-Varga has observed that a strong story line once again predominates in narrative literature2), also the presence of the so-called entangled narratives3 of the New Novel, and the tendency to reject characteristic literary models that consciously refuse "lépreuve de lélucidation".4 taken up Having linear narrative, however fragmentary this narrative may be, writers seem to rediscover the pleasures of a well-told story or they portray insignificant everyday lives that have been described as "la vie banale". The influence of the New Novel is more or less evident in any number of contemporary French texts. Nevertheless, experiments in form seem to have yielded in recent decades to the portrayal of man's existential problems and the related theme of meaning, or the absence of meaning, in the lives of men.
1 Ecritures contemporaines 2,Etats du roman contemporainréunis par Jan Baetens et Dominique(textes Viart, Paris-Caen: La Revue des lettres modernes, Lettres modernes Minard, 1999. 2 Bruno Blanckeman,Les récits indécidables,Paris: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2000, p. 15. 3 Jean Ricardou, Le Nouveau Roman,Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973. 4Luc Ferry, Alain RenautLa Pensee 68.Essai sur l'anti-humanisme contemporain,Paris: "Le Monde actuel, 1985, Gallimard, "Folio/essais", 1988, p. 26.
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According to Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut, a new humanism has replaced the so-called anti-humanism of the older school.5 The newly discovered emphasis on the story seems to go hand in hand with efforts to give greater attention to the phenomenology of memory and in the process uncover not only the problematic side of memory, its pain and its uncertainly, but also the many existential meanings hidden within that memory, i.e. the positive of 6 remembering. The search for lost time in contemporary writing also signifies an important trend toward greater subjectivity which, as is well know, acquires its characteristic form of crystallization in the autobiography. In fact, many critics have emphasized the presence of a significant surge in autobiographical writing that began soon after 1970 and see the next decades as autobiography's high point. In his well-knownL'Autobiographie en France7 422Philippe Lejeune offers impressive statistics: autobiographical works published in 1993 in France alone (322 originally written in French, 100 translations, 354 first editions, 68 repeated printings) The huge popularity of the genre can be attributed to a variety of causes. Sociologists, for instance Gilles Lipovetsky, tend to emphasize such phenomena as depersonalisation, mass anonymity, superficiality of human contacts characteristic of modern societies, a hypertrophic sense of the individual "I" provoked by conditions of anonymity, mistrust of all ideologies, the desire to give permanence to the self through the printed word and thus persist in being despite the ephemeral: Le narcissisme ne désigne pas seulement la passion de la connaissance de soi mais aussi la passion de la révélation intime de Moi comme en témoignent l'inflation actuelle des biographies et autobiographies ou la psichologisation du langage politique.8 Literary critics have also noticed an increase of interest in authentic narratives among the readers, perhaps nostalgia for the simple literary text. As for the writers, they affirm that introspective writing enables them to rearrange in unique ways fragments of past experience and thus lend them new meanings; by shaping and reshaping autobiographical materials, they succeed in modifying and renewing literary 5 Ibid. 6 Ecritures contemporaines 1, Mémoires du récit, (textes réunis par Dominique Viart), Paris-Caen: La Revue des lettres modenes, Lettres modernes Minard, 1998. 7 Philippe Lejeune,LAutobiographie en France,Paris: A. Colin, 1971, p.95. 8Gilles Lipovetsky,Lère du vide,Paris: Gallimard, 1983, p. 91-92.
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forms: they rediscover the subject and explore its complexities, create journals of the external life or engage in photographic writing. For these reasons the recent rediscovery of autobiography does not necessarily mean a return to the classical model established in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions. The best examples of contemporary egotistical writing abandon the syndrome of the narcissistic "I" so much in evidence in earlier autobiographies and embrace tendencies generally characteristic of post-modern of literature. As a result, they are able to interpret rather liberally traditional autobiographical models; they engage in game playing with inherited forms and if on occasion they use techniques reminiscent of thenouveau roman, latter survives as no more than a fractured the remnant. When contemporary autobiographers concentrate on creating an "I", they tend to penetrate into the deeper, shadowy zones beneath the surface or explore the problematic aspect of the subject's existence in today's socium, in other words they seek to focus on the subject's complexity and indeterminateness. For this reason, authors of autobiographies often have recourse to insights and methodologies borrowed from such non-literary disciplines as psychoanalysis, sociology, ethnography or history. Fictional fragments interlink in their writings with fragments of lived reality that is being narrated, making it difficult for both reader and critic to distinguish between truth and fiction. In such instances, autobiographical narratives can loose the clarity of their generic definition and become as it were illustrations of marginal genres or genres that are extremely difficult to define in terms of general characteristics. Such variations on the autobiography reflect the ambiguities of the contemporary period; on the one hand they highlight the sensitive problem of the subject's identity and on the other they raise issues regarding the co-existence of different generic strands embedded in the same work of literature. It is precisely in this context that the work of the French writer Annie Ernaux (1940)opens up a wide spectrum of investigative possibilities and in many different ways reflects the general trends mentioned above as well as the author's own generic ambiguities. The problemexplored in the dissertation. Preliminarily, the dissertation suggests that traditional concepts of the autobiography may be inadequate in analysing
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Annie Ernaux's prose writing because the author consistently oversteps boundaries set by the canon, modifying traditional elements and interpreting independently such autobiographical parameters as the antinomy of subjective and objective narrative. Theobjectof the present dissertation includes the following:of research analysis of canonical definitions of the autobiography and their transformation in Annie Ernaux's narratives; the author's originality, evident in the use of multiple narrative codes (biographical, ethnographical, feminist and sociological); and, finally, the predominance of sociological aspects. In analysing Annie Ernaux, we emphasize in particular modifications and divergences from the canon and do so by setting the author's work against the most widely known autobiographical models; the latter are studied by attending to the typological structures. The hibridity of the author's texts, obtained by emphasizing sociological rather than autobiographical aspects, best reflects the author's innovative ways of constructing the self. The author's narratives are linked to both traditional and contemporary contexts of French autobiographical writing. This requires the use of historic and diachronic critical approaches which help us to understand the innovative aspect of the creative choices made by author. Clearly, Annie Ernaux's generic transformations are original, at the same time they both reflect and reveal trends characteristic of contemporary French writing brought about by the writers' search for new forms of expression. The goalthe dissertation. By relying for the most part on French theories ofof the autobiography, the dissertation seeks to reveal the changing aspect of Annie Ernaux's autobiographical narratives. Given the hybridity of the author's approach, the dissertation analyses both the canonical autobiographical tendencies and their modifications which acquire features characteristic of sociological, ethnographic, feminist, transpersonal and biographical discourses. So as to reach this goal, the dissertation sets for itself thesespecific tasks:a) to define the art of autobiography practised in France; b) to describe its normative aspect by relying on theoretic considerations c) to show how French autobiography evolved from Jean Jacques Rousseau'sConfessionsto the most recent post modernist models; French autobiography is studied from the diachronic innovative perspective; d) to
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describe autobiographic tendencies evident in Annie Ernaux's work by using theoretic considerations as the starting point e) to highlight generic changes introduced by the author, who transformed subjectivity into objectivity, autobiography into sociographic discourse. Originality and relevance of the dissertation.Although two works by Annie Ernaux (La Femme geléeand Place, La9) been published in translation, in one have volume, the author has received little critical attention in Lithuania (several articles have been written by the author of this dissertation) despite the fact that French and non-French critics have amply demonstrated Ernaux's significance and merit - the great variety of themes and observations evident in her narratives, the author's complex style marked by hibridity, her original interpretation of long-standing literary traditions, all of these aspects remain to be discovered by Lithuanian critics. This dissertation seeks to bring to the attention of Lithuanian readers the prose narratives of a innovative contemporary French writer. Critical studies published abroad tend to limit themselves to the analysis of one aspect of the author's narratives, for instance, autobiographical, ethnographical, feminist, sociological, considered apart from the others, even when they recognize or comment upon the author's generic complexities. This dissertation seeks to offer a broader sense of Annie Ernaux' accomplishments and thus emphasizes not only the sociological aspects characteristic of her work, but also their interaction with the canonical or autobiographical. Sociological approaches to Annie Ernaux's narratives are rather recent; they surfaced after critics began noticing parallels between Annie Ernaux and the eminent French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. As a result, analyses from sociological perspectives remain few and, unfortunately, they stop short of in-depth investigations. By contrast, this dissertation places due emphasis on the sociological aspects and thus demonstrates explicitly the many links and interactions that connect the writer and the sociologist. The author of the dissertation rejects the notion proposed by some critics that autobiographical elements predominate in Ernaux's writing; we argue that critics have failed to notice the sociological meanings and implications of Annie
9Annie Ernaux,Sustingusi moteris, tr. V. Vitkauskienė, Vilnius: altvykslė, 1994.
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Ernaux's narratives. Indirectly the dissertation raises the oft-debated question of interrelationships between art and science, literature and sociology. In her doctoral dissertation on individual experience and autobiography (defended in 1998 at Vilnius Pedagogical University) Gitana Vanagaitė correctly has argued that "the autobiography remains an unexplored genre in Lithuanina."10Critical investigations of the genre have hardly begun.11 addition to the dissertation just In mentioned, several articles on the subject have been published in Lithuanian. Unfortunately, they offer no more than brief reviews of autobiographical tendencies evident in the work of selected authors (for instance, in her article Theory and Practice of the Autobiography"12 Genovaitė Dručkutė links autobiographical theory with the work of Joseph Frank; two articles by this author have briefly described Annie Ernaux's autobiographical tendencies, etc.). This dissertation takes as its starting point the theoretic views articulated by Philippe Lejeune. It then traces the step by step transformations of autobiography as a literary genre, highlights the twists and turns in the appearance of the term of auto fiction, provides a detailed analysis of journals that open up to the external world (analysis of such journals is also a new phenomenon in Lithuania) and thus to a degree fills the vacuum of critical analyses felt in Lithuania. Autobiographical themes seem new within the context of literary studies in Lithuania, whereas significant attention has been given to them by non-Lithuanian critics. This renders timely and urgent their consideration in this dissertation. The present analysis relies on severalmethods: historical-diachronic, analytical, and narratological. The historical-diachronic method is used to analyze issues stated under the rubric "the problem explored in the dissertation". It highlights the evolution of French autobiography as a genre and in particular concentrates on those innovative modifications which help us to evaluate more objectively the author under study in this dissertation.
10Gitana Vanagaitė, "Asmens patirties sklaida autobiografijose", Summary of doctoral disertation, Vilnius: VPU, 1998. 11GenovaitėDručkutėteorija ir praktika (Philippe'as Lejeune'as ir Jozefas, " Autobiografijos Frankas)",Literatūra46 (5) 2004, Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla. 12. Ibid.
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The analytical method is used to shed light on the behavioural strategies of Annie Ernaux's characters, their inner motivation and its underlying causes. Since we also take also examine the hybrid aspect of Ernaux's texts, the analytical method has been useful in highlighting both the texts' literary and sociological meanings a well as the author's originality as a non-traditional autobiographer. The same method proved useful is detecting and analysing parallels between Annie Ernaux's texts and various autobiographical theories and traditions, also to link the author with the sociological ideas of Pierre Bourdieu. As for the author's journals, they are compared and contrasted with canonical, i.e. introspective journals. The dissertation makes use of narratological methods to detect Annie Ernaux's narrative strategies, including such aspects as focalisation and narrative point of view from both autobiographical and sociological perspectives. This dual analysis helps us to highlight Ernaux's antinomies between the objective and the subjective. The dissertation relies most heavily on terminology that derives from Philippe Lejeune' autobiographical theory, also on narratological terms and terms specific to Pierre Bourdieu's theories. Research materialanalyzed in the dissertation includes all of Annie Ernaux's literary texts. Some of them receive no more than cursory attention; others are analyzed at much greater length. This approach was necessary because of the subject chosen for the dissertation as well as the fact that some of Annie Ernaux's themes and motifs recur in several works. In some cases(notablyPassion simple,Se perdreand L'occupation) content matter is also almost identical. Annie Ernaux has published thirteen prose works:Les Armoires vides (1974), Ce quils disent ou rien (1977), La femme gelée (1981), La Place (1983), Une Femme (1987), Passion simple (1991), Journal du dehors ( 1993), Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit (1997), La Honte (1997), LEvénement (2000) La vie extérieure (2000), Se perdre (2001)and (2002). LOccupationAmong the thirteen mentioned, one finds three autobiographical novels (Les Armoires vides, Ce quils disent ou rien, La Femme gelée), six shorter narratives(La Place, Une Femme, Passion simple, La Honte, LEvénement, LOccupation)and four journals(Journal du dehors, Je ne suis sortie de ma nuit, La vie extérieure, Se perdre).lends in its own unique way meaningEach one of these works to moments of the past remembered by the author.
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