L\u2019acte autobiographique chez les romanciers nord-am\u00e9ricains :
\nIrruption de la non-fiction<\/p>\n
Aix-Marseille Universit\u00e9, 6 et 7 juillet 2023
\nOrganisateurs : Sophie Vallas (Aix-Marseille Universit\u00e9, LERMA), Arnaud Schmitt (Universit\u00e9 de Bordeaux, CLIMAS)<\/p>\n
Scroll down for the English version<\/p>\n
Au sujet de ces autobiographies ou memoirs publi\u00e9s par des \u00e9crivains dont la litt\u00e9rature est le m\u00e9tier (\u00ab the literary writer\u2019s autobiography \u00bb), Laura Marcus souligne que la connaissance, par le lecteur, du nom et de la r\u00e9putation de l\u2019auteur donne au r\u00e9cit de soi un certain statut litt\u00e9raire : \u00ab Not all autobiographers are writers by profession, though there is a widespread assumption that the literary writer\u2019s autobiography best defines the genre \u00bb. Loin des multiples r\u00e9cits autobiographiques \u00e9manant de c\u00e9l\u00e9brit\u00e9s ou d\u2019anonymes que Rockwell Gray identifiait d\u00e9j\u00e0 comme r\u00e9v\u00e9lateurs d\u2019un \u00ab memoir boom \u00bb aux \u00c9tats-Unis dans un article de 1982 (\u00ab Autobiography Now \u00bb) et qui continuent \u00e0 faire la part belle aux confessional memoirs, loin \u00e9galement des romans autobiographiques et des autofictions qui ont, pour reprendre les termes de Maurice Couturier, permis \u00e0 nombre d\u2019\u00e9crivains de \u00ab passer en fraude [leur] autobiographie \u00bb, ce colloque s\u2019int\u00e9ressera \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9criture autobiographique ouvertement publi\u00e9e comme telle, plus institutionnelle sans doute, des romanciers nord-am\u00e9ricains et s\u2019interrogera sur la valeur et l\u2019impact que peut avoir cet acte autobiographique : comment le geste autobiographique surgit-il dans une carri\u00e8re dans laquelle domine la fiction ? \u00c0 quel moment intervient-il ? Quels rapports entretient-il avec la cr\u00e9ation et la production fictionnelles ? Comment s\u2019ins\u00e8re-t-il dans la bibliographie de l\u2019auteur, appara\u00eet-il comme un texte \u00ab mineur \u00bb aux c\u00f4t\u00e9s de textes \u00ab majeurs \u00bb ? R\u00e9clame-t-il une autre \u00e9criture, se place-t-il d\u2019embl\u00e9e dans un espace autre ? L\u2019irruption de la non-fiction autobiographique dans une \u0153uvre litt\u00e9raire compos\u00e9e majoritairement de romans ou nouvelles soul\u00e8ve de nombreuses questions sur la logique artistique qui la sous-tend, sur la fa\u00e7on dont sont d\u00e8s lors articul\u00e9s des textes relevant de genres diff\u00e9rents ou encore sur les choix \u00e9ditoriaux faits au moment de la publication (mentions port\u00e9es sur la couverture ou la quatri\u00e8me, paratextes\u2026).
\nOn pense souvent qu\u2019il y a une certaine logique \u00e0 ce que l\u2019\u00e9criture autobiographique se produise \u00e0 la fin d\u2019une carri\u00e8re, acte r\u00e9flexif r\u00e9capitulant une vie, revisitant des \u00e9crits. Mark Twain, qui publia quelques chapitres de son autobiographie dans les ann\u00e9es qui pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e8rent sa mort, d\u00e9cida n\u00e9anmoins que la publication de son autobiographie serait un acte posthume, n\u2019intervenant que cent ans apr\u00e8s sa mort (The Autobiography of Mark Twain, 2010). D\u2019autres textes, tardifs \u00e9galement, \u00e9voquent parfois des actes de d\u00e9c\u00e8s, leur auteur pla\u00e7ant la mort d\u2019un proche au c\u0153ur d\u2019un r\u00e9cit qui \u00e9claire tout autant la leur, au bout d\u2019une vie d\u00e9sormais vue comme s\u2019amenuisant inexorablement : les deux memoirs de Joan Didion, The Year of the Magical Thinking en 2005 (acte de d\u00e9c\u00e8s et acte de mariage dans le m\u00eame souffle) et Blue Nights en 2011 (acte de d\u00e9c\u00e8s et acte de filiation), appartiennent \u00e0 cette veine cr\u00e9pusculaire, tout autant que Patrimony de Philip Roth (1991). \u00c0 l\u2019inverse, certains textes autobiographiques font figure d\u2019actes de naissance annon\u00e7ant la venue au monde d\u2019un nouvel \u00e9crivain : The Invention of Solitude (1982), de Paul Auster, met au monde la voix nouvelle, en prose, d\u2019un po\u00e8te et essayiste qui poursuivra, \u00e0 partir de cette date, une carri\u00e8re de romancier qui, dans une large mesure, d\u00e9veloppe et fictionnalise bien des th\u00e8mes contenus dans ce memoir s\u00e9minal. \u00c0 intervalles r\u00e9guliers, Auster revient \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9criture autobiographique, reprenant le r\u00e9cit de sa vie sous un autre angle et ajoutant ainsi un nouvel acte au th\u00e9\u00e2tre de sa vie (The Red Notebook, 1995 ; Hand to Mouth, 1997 ; Winter Journal, 2012 ; Report from the Interior, 2013).
\n\u00c9chappant \u00e0 ces deux extr\u00eames sur l\u2019axe chronologique d\u2019une carri\u00e8re, certains textes s\u2019inscrivent moins dans le temps qu\u2019ils cherchent \u00e0 explorer l\u2019art m\u00eame de leur auteur, s\u2019offrant ainsi comme des didascalies jalonnant les diff\u00e9rents actes de l\u2019\u0153uvre majeure qu\u2019ils \u00e9clairent : Joyce Carol Oates, par exemple, n\u2019a cess\u00e9 d\u2019analyser l\u2019acte d\u2019\u00e9crire au fil de sa vie ((Woman) Writer : Occasions and Opportunities en 1974, The Faith of a Writer : Life, Craft, Art en 2003, A Widow\u2019s Story. A Memoir en 2011, The Lost Landscape. A Writer\u2019s Coming of Age en 2015). \u00c0 l\u2019oppos\u00e9 de cette pratique autobiographique r\u00e9currente, un texte comme Burning the Days (1997), de James Salter, fait figure d\u2019unique r\u00e9cit autobiographique publi\u00e9 au beau milieu d\u2019une \u0153uvre toute fictionnelle, presque un acte manqu\u00e9, une autre histoire dont la structure et la voix ne diff\u00e8rent que peu de celles des romans, enchantant les lecteurs de Salter avec la m\u00eame puissance. Certains textes autobiographiques, \u00e0 l\u2019image de Black Boy de Richard Wright (1945), interviennent encore comme des actes irr\u00e9versibles, \u00e9clipsant la fiction de l\u2019auteur.
\nPhilippe Lejeune regrettait, dans Signes de vie, que \u00ab depuis qu\u2019on a pris la sale habitude de publier les journaux, beaucoup de gens \u00e9crivent leur intimit\u00e9 en costume-cravate \u00bb (74). Un romancier, qui plus est reconnu, n\u2019est-il pas tent\u00e9, justement, d\u2019\u00e9crire son \u00ab intimit\u00e9 en costume-cravate \u00bb, loin des actes autobiographiques spontan\u00e9s, dits authentiques, dont les r\u00e9seaux sociaux peuvent aujourd\u2019hui se faire les vecteurs ? L\u2019autobiographie peut en effet repr\u00e9senter un risque, d\u00e9voiler, volontairement ou non, les coulisses de la cr\u00e9ation fictionnelle, ternir, \u00e9clairer excessivement ou en tout cas alt\u00e9rer la figure d\u2019un auteur.<\/p>\n
Les communications pourront aborder, entre autres, les probl\u00e9matiques suivantes :
\n\u2013\tL\u2019origine de l\u2019acte autobiographique dans une carri\u00e8re de romancier
\n\u2013\tLa dialectique \u00e9crits mineurs \/ \u00e9crits majeurs
\n\u2013\tLes sp\u00e9cificit\u00e9s stylistiques des r\u00e9cits autobiographiques par rapport aux textes fictionnels
\n\u2013\tL\u2019\u00e9quilibre d\u2019une \u0153uvre, et plus sp\u00e9cifiquement la place occup\u00e9e par ces textes autobiographiques dans l\u2019\u0153uvre globale
\n\u2013\tLa r\u00e9ception de ces textes autobiographiques, souvent isol\u00e9s ou m\u00e9connus
\n\u2013\tLe dialogue qui s\u2019instaure entre textes fictionnels et non-fictionnels au sein d\u2019une m\u00eame \u0153uvre (Laura Marcus : \u00ab The literary writer\u2019s autobiography also bears on, and frequently comments upon, his or her other works \u00bb)
\n\u2013\tLes outils d\u2019analyse n\u00e9cessaires (similaires, diff\u00e9rents ?), pour \u00e9tudier ces textes
\n\u2013\tLa persistance d\u2019une distance entre le narrateur et l\u2019auteur, m\u00eame dans un texte autobiographique, similaire \u00e0 celle incarn\u00e9e par le concept de narrateur impliqu\u00e9 dont Jim Phelan, par exemple, per\u00e7oit la pr\u00e9sence dans des textes r\u00e9f\u00e9rentiels tels que The Year of Magical Thinking de Joan Didion.<\/p>\n
\u2022\tLes propositions d\u2019environ 400 mots accompagn\u00e9es d\u2019une notice biographique seront adress\u00e9es \u00e0 Sophie Vallas (sophie.vallas) et Arnaud Schmitt (arnaud.schmitt) avant le 30 juin 2022.<\/p>\n
North-American Novelists\u2019 Autobiographical Acts: Nonfictional Disruptions<\/p>\n
Aix-Marseilles University, 6\/7 July 2023
\nOrganizers: Sophie Vallas (Aix-Marseilles University, LERMA), Arnaud Schmitt (University of Bordeaux, CLIMAS)<\/p>\n
Addressing the topic of autobiographical texts or memoirs published by novelists, what she calls \u201cthe literary writer\u2019s autobiography,\u201d Laura Marcus underlines that the reader\u2019s awareness of the name and reputation of the author immediately confers a certain literary status on the autobiographical text: \u201cNot all autobiographers are writers by profession, though there is a widespread assumption that the literary writer\u2019s autobiography best defines the genre.\u201d Far from the host of confessional memoirs, either by celebrities or unknown authors, a publishing phenomenon identified by Rockwell Gray as a \u201cmemoir boom\u201d in his 1982 article \u201cAutobiography Now,\u201d and far from so-called autobiographical novels or autofictions which, according to Maurice Couturier, allowed many writers to \u201csmuggle their own autobiographies,\u201d this conference will focus on autobiographical texts\u2014paratextually and unequivocally identified as such\u2014published by American novelists, on \u201cthe literary writer\u2019s autobiography\u201d in other words, and on their influence on the perception of the overall work of their author. We will wonder how autobiographical acts happen, when they happen, in a career dominated by fiction, what their links with the fictional part of the work are or why they are often perceived as minor texts among a fictional body of major ones. Also, do they conjure up specific writing techniques, a separate creative space? The disruption caused by autobiographical texts in a literary work mostly devoted to the writing of fiction raises several questions concerning the artistic logic underlying them, the way they are embedded in the complete oeuvre of the author and the editorial and paratextual choices made for their publication.
\nIt often seems logical that authors should turn to life writing at the end of their career, an introspective act embracing their whole life, revisiting their own work. Mark Twain, who published a few chapters of his autobiography in the years prior to his death, decided nevertheless that its publication would be a posthumous act, a hundred years after his death more precisely (The Autobiography of Mark Twain, 2010). Other texts, also published late in their authors\u2019 life, focus on the death of a relative or a friend while offering authors the opportunity to reflect on their own life, inexorably drawing to a close: Joan Didion\u2019s autobiographical diptych, The Year of the Magical Thinking in 2005 (simultaneously mourning the death and celebrating the life of her husband, John Dunne) and Blue Nights in 2011 (doing the same for Didion\u2019s adopted daughter, Quintana, who died in 2005), belongs to this crepuscular tradition in which writing almost amounts to issuing legal, performative acts standing for marriage, adoption, death. Such is also the case for Philip Roth\u2019s Patrimony (1991). Conversely, some autobiographical texts herald the birth of an author: Paul Auster\u2019s The Invention of Solitude (1982) delivered, in prose, the new voice of a poet and essayist who, from then on, would dedicate his career as a novelist to developing and fictionalizing many topics already present in this seminal memoir. Auster has gone on regularly publishing autobiographical narratives, each time revisiting his life from a different angle and adding new acts to the play of his life (The Red Notebook, 1995; Hand to Mouth, 1997; Winter Journal, 2012; Report from the Interior, 2013).
\nFor other autobiographical texts, what is at stake is less the moment when they get written, either at the beginning or at the end of a career, than their capacity of exploring the very art of their authors. In that case, they tend to exist as so many comments on the fictional works which they occasionally revisit. Joyce Carol Oates, for instance, has kept on analyzing the act of writing throughout the years ((Woman) Writer: Occasions and Opportunities, 1974; The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art, 2003; A Widow\u2019s Story. A Memoir, 2011; The Lost Landscape. A Writer\u2019s Coming of Age, 2015). At the very opposite of Oates\u2019 regular autobiographical practice, James Salter\u2019s Burning the Days (1997) stands as a unique autobiographical text in a body of work otherwise entirely devoted to fiction, almost like a faulty act, even if the volume sounds like Salter\u2019s powerful novels in terms of structure and voice, much to the delight of his readers. On the other hand, certain autobiographical texts, just like Richard Wright\u2019s Black Boy (1945) for instance, can be seen as irreversible acts which eclipse the author\u2019s fictional production.
\nPhilippe Lejeune once regretted that \u201cthe dirty habit of publishing diaries has resulted into most people writing their privacy while decked out in their very best attire.\u201d Is a novelist, and even more so an established one, not tempted, indeed, to write their autobiography in their best array, drifting away from spontaneous, supposedly authentic autobiographical acts which tend to be nowadays published on social networks? Autobiography indeed involves an element of risk and exposure since it may, whether purposefully or not, allow the reader to get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of fiction, and thus disrupt the construction of the figure of the author.<\/p>\n
Proposals may address, among other issues, the following:
\n\u2013 The origin of the autobiographical act in a novelist\u2019s career
\n\u2013 The minor works\/major works dialectics.
\n\u2013 Stylistic specificities of autobiographical narratives versus fictional texts
\n\u2013 The balance in an author\u2019s oeuvre, and more specifically the place occupied by the autobiographical texts in the overall work
\n\u2013 The reception of the autobiographical texts, often isolated or unknown
\n\u2013 The dialogue between fictional and non-fictional texts within a work (Laura Marcus: \u201cThe literary writer\u2019s autobiography also bears on, and frequently comments upon, his or her other works\u201d)
\n\u2013 The tools needed for analysis (similar, different?) to study the autobiographical texts
\n\u2013 The persistence of a distance between the narrator and the author, even in an autobiographical text, similar to that embodied by the concept of implied narrator whose presence Jim Phelan, for example, detects even in referential texts such as Joan Didion\u2019s The Year of Magical Thinking.<\/p>\n
\u2022\tPlease submit an abstract of approx. 400 words and a short bionote to sophie.vallas and arnaud.schmitt by 30 June, 2022 at the latest.<\/p>\n
Source: Arnaud Schmitt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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