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Transmissions: Essays in French Literature, Thought and Cinema
No full textAs a concept, transmission is crucial to our understanding of how ideas circulate within and across cultures. It opens up a series of questions that link to key debates concerning the exchange of knowledge. Bringing together research from a broad range of areas in French studies, this volume investigates the workings of transmission in relation to canonical and contemporary figures alike, including Proust, Barthes, Derrida, Jean-Luc Godard, and Claire Denis. The essays collected here offer a lively response to the themes of transmission, considering literature and philosophy from the medieval period onwards, as well as modern cinema and critical theory. The first section traces concepts of malign transmission that have informed medieval, early modern and finally contemporary representations of contagion. The second section addresses the impact of trauma, along with its imperative to testify to, or transmit, painful experiences such as rape and the Holocaust. The final section considers transmission in terms of a signal that carries a message, as well as the media that transport or encode that signal.As a concept, transmission is crucial to our understanding of how ideas circulate within and across cultures. It opens up a series of questions that link to key debates concerning the exchange of knowledge. Bringing together research from a broad range of areas in French studies, this volume investigates the workings of transmission in relation to canonical and contemporary figures alike, including Proust, Barthes, Derrida, Jean-Luc Godard, and Claire Denis. The essays collected here offer a lively response to the themes of transmission, considering literature and philosophy from the medieval period onwards, as well as modern cinema and critical theory. The first section traces concepts of malign transmission that have informed medieval, early modern and finally contemporary representations of contagion. The second section addresses the impact of trauma, along with its imperative to testify to, or transmit, painful experiences such as rape and the Holocaust. The final section considers transmission in terms of a signal that carries a message, as well as the media that transport or encode that signal
Reading Walter Benjamin’s Concept of the Ruin in Victor Hugo’s 'Notre-Dame de Paris’
No full textWalter Benjamin's readings of modernity are repeatedly strained by the tension he identifies between demystification and the drive towards the mythic. How are we to awaken from 'ideological dream-states' and engage with an indeterminate reality without positing the unity of an integrated whole to begin with? I suggest that Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris yields a compelling perspective on this dilemma. Hugo never denies the lure of myths in his novel, simply their possibility, recognising that they remain as irresistible as they are incredible. He energises the opposition between artifice and actuality, proposing that man can only oscillate between both the ideal and the real, even though he cannot overcome their incompatibility. This dynamic is observed upon Notre-Dame herself. Her hybrid edifice bears the mark of bygone values, yet as such stands as a monument to the transformative sweep of time. In turn, Hugo teases yet simultaneously refuses any absolute narrative viewpoint, stressing both the limitations of language and his own subjectivity. What makes this reading less an exercise of intellectual indulgence than a matter of critical urgency is Benjamin's widely overlooked attraction towards Hugo as a modernist writer. Indeed, the novel deploys two key tools of Benjamin's thinking: allegory, to expose meaning as arbitrary, and the ruin, which preserves the image of a history that is no more. I explore Hugo's representation of both novel and cathedral as realms of contrast, not integration, so as to make a productive return to the dilemmas Benjamin encounters.Walter Benjamin's readings of modernity are repeatedly strained by the tension he identifies between demystification and the drive towards the mythic. How are we to awaken from 'ideological dream-states' and engage with an indeterminate reality without positing the unity of an integrated whole to begin with? I suggest that Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris yields a compelling perspective on this dilemma. Hugo never denies the lure of myths in his novel, simply their possibility, recognising that they remain as irresistible as they are incredible. He energises the opposition between artifice and actuality, proposing that man can only oscillate between both the ideal and the real, even though he cannot overcome their incompatibility. This dynamic is observed upon Notre-Dame herself. Her hybrid edifice bears the mark of bygone values, yet as such stands as a monument to the transformative sweep of time. In turn, Hugo teases yet simultaneously refuses any absolute narrative viewpoint, stressing both the limitations of language and his own subjectivity. What makes this reading less an exercise of intellectual indulgence than a matter of critical urgency is Benjamin's widely overlooked attraction towards Hugo as a modernist writer. Indeed, the novel deploys two key tools of Benjamin's thinking: allegory, to expose meaning as arbitrary, and the ruin, which preserves the image of a history that is no more. I explore Hugo's representation of both novel and cathedral as realms of contrast, not integration, so as to make a productive return to the dilemmas Benjamin encounters
Baisez-moi belle Juju! Victor Hugo and the Joy of his Juliette
No full textThe fifty-year affair between Victor Hugo and Juliette Drouet became integral to the poet’s life and character. Falling in love with the renowned courtesan when she was cast in the production of 'Lucrèce Borgia' in February 1833, Hugo insisted that his ‘Juju’ remain at his side for the remainder of their lives. He owed her not only his freedom when she arranged for his escape from Paris immediately after the 1851 coup d’état, but also the reproduction and preservation of much of his work. She tirelessly copied out many of his manuscripts and even ensured they survived intact when she followed him into (and out of) exile. Hugo’s promise that ‘je vais bientôt te rejoindre’ following her death in 1883 was perhaps his last prophetic act, having been left inconsolable at the loss of ‘mon ange’. Within Hugo studies, Juliette nonetheless tends to be seen as a victim of both her love and indeed Hugo’s egotism. Throughout his life, Hugo amassed countless affairs and liaisons with young and virile women, never denying to himself his physical attraction to the beauty and vigour of youth. ‘J’aime les jeunes femmes, non les vieilles. Je ne suis pas bouquiniste en amour.’ As such, Juliette is perceived by biographers like Elliott Grant and Joanna Richardson to play the role of the redeemed courtesan in Hugo’s self-centred fantasies whilst forced simultaneously to endure heartache as her ‘Toto’ pursued his other creative indulgences both at work and in the bedroom. This she did with unfaltering loyalty, imprisoning herself in a supremely testing relationship that is illustrated across the some 20,000 letters she wrote to him. In this chapter, I challenge the one-sided nature of these appraisals of Juliette by questioning the extent to which Hugo himself also became utterly dependent on their partnership. This insistence on Juliette being in his life is evident in 'Le Livre de l’anniversaire' – an old leather-bound book whose pages of Spanish poetry had been ripped out by Hugo to make way for letters and poems he would write to Juliette every year on the anniversary of their love, and which she stored next to her bed as a keepsake. Rather than merely representing the gift of a cad to placate his often put-upon mistress, this small collection reveals much of the fragility of Hugo’s self-identity. The ritualistic and testimonial nature of the writing here underlines that Juliette brings constancy to a dramatic life that was famously marked by personal loss and relentless change. This sense of the eternal that Hugo commemorates in their love is a vital component of his Romantic worldview; one which he cannot do without and which confirms both neediness and anxiety on his part. In turn, these readings will call into question Hugo’s clichéd characterisation as a 'grand homme' by qualifying his self-assured masculinity as at once forthright and yet highly insecure.The fifty-year affair between Victor Hugo and Juliette Drouet became integral to the poet’s life and character. Falling in love with the renowned courtesan when she was cast in the production of 'Lucrèce Borgia' in February 1833, Hugo insisted that his ‘Juju’ remain at his side for the remainder of their lives. He owed her not only his freedom when she arranged for his escape from Paris immediately after the 1851 coup d’état, but also the reproduction and preservation of much of his work. She tirelessly copied out many of his manuscripts and even ensured they survived intact when she followed him into (and out of) exile. Hugo’s promise that ‘je vais bientôt te rejoindre’ following her death in 1883 was perhaps his last prophetic act, having been left inconsolable at the loss of ‘mon ange’. Within Hugo studies, Juliette nonetheless tends to be seen as a victim of both her love and indeed Hugo’s egotism. Throughout his life, Hugo amassed countless affairs and liaisons with young and virile women, never denying to himself his physical attraction to the beauty and vigour of youth. ‘J’aime les jeunes femmes, non les vieilles. Je ne suis pas bouquiniste en amour.’ As such, Juliette is perceived by biographers like Elliott Grant and Joanna Richardson to play the role of the redeemed courtesan in Hugo’s self-centred fantasies whilst forced simultaneously to endure heartache as her ‘Toto’ pursued his other creative indulgences both at work and in the bedroom. This she did with unfaltering loyalty, imprisoning herself in a supremely testing relationship that is illustrated across the some 20,000 letters she wrote to him. In this chapter, I challenge the one-sided nature of these appraisals of Juliette by questioning the extent to which Hugo himself also became utterly dependent on their partnership. This insistence on Juliette being in his life is evident in 'Le Livre de l’anniversaire' – an old leather-bound book whose pages of Spanish poetry had been ripped out by Hugo to make way for letters and poems he would write to Juliette every year on the anniversary of their love, and which she stored next to her bed as a keepsake. Rather than merely representing the gift of a cad to placate his often put-upon mistress, this small collection reveals much of the fragility of Hugo’s self-identity. The ritualistic and testimonial nature of the writing here underlines that Juliette brings constancy to a dramatic life that was famously marked by personal loss and relentless change. This sense of the eternal that Hugo commemorates in their love is a vital component of his Romantic worldview; one which he cannot do without and which confirms both neediness and anxiety on his part. In turn, these readings will call into question Hugo’s clichéd characterisation as a 'grand homme' by qualifying his self-assured masculinity as at once forthright and yet highly insecure
Introduction -- Returning to Notre-Dame
No full textIn this new introduction by Bradley Stephens (literary scholar at the University of Bristol), the ongoing modern relevance of Hugo's classic gothic novel is explored in terms of its cinematic and political elements. This introduction forms part of a striking new package for Walter J. Cobb's translation, with an afterword by Graham Robb, leading scholar of 19th-century French literature.In this new introduction by Bradley Stephens (literary scholar at the University of Bristol), the ongoing modern relevance of Hugo's classic gothic novel is explored in terms of its cinematic and political elements. This introduction forms part of a striking new package for Walter J. Cobb's translation, with an afterword by Graham Robb, leading scholar of 19th-century French literature
A Surreptitious Romantic? Reading Sartre with Victor Hugo
No full textAs Christina Howells suggests, Sartre's work betrays a yearning on his part for ‘a supreme moral command or imperative’, coloured by what Iris Murdoch calls ‘a surreptitious romanticism’. Sartre himself seems hostile towards the idea that he harbours a furtive amount of Romantic idealism in man’s essential worth. In 'L’Idiot de la Famille', he criticises the arch-Romantic Victor Hugo for being ‘the vatic poet’ under dictation from on high. However, he also notes a key duality in Hugo that itself is reminiscent of his own philosophical dilemma. ‘Half priest and half anarchist’, Hugo desires a harmonious totality to man's being, but is equally aware of the inexplicable disorder at the centre of existence. Hugo insists that we can but oscillate between the ideal and the real, since man (as Sartre echoes) is caught in a perpetual instability of being. As such, Hugo’s work aligns Romantic voyance with a distinctly existentialist perspective, indicating that both can in fact operate in tandem. A parallel reading of the two can thus serve a double imperative for my reflections on Sartre: firstly, to explore Nik Farrell Fox’s recent argument that the tension between a post-modern sense of despair and a modernist longing for meaning is the drive and not the stumbling block of Sartre’s thinking; and secondly, to reinsert his literature more prominently back into Sartre Studies by way of its effectiveness in performing this fundamental ambiguity through an emphasis on the creative and the unfixed.As Christina Howells suggests, Sartre's work betrays a yearning on his part for ‘a supreme moral command or imperative’, coloured by what Iris Murdoch calls ‘a surreptitious romanticism’. Sartre himself seems hostile towards the idea that he harbours a furtive amount of Romantic idealism in man’s essential worth. In 'L’Idiot de la Famille', he criticises the arch-Romantic Victor Hugo for being ‘the vatic poet’ under dictation from on high. However, he also notes a key duality in Hugo that itself is reminiscent of his own philosophical dilemma. ‘Half priest and half anarchist’, Hugo desires a harmonious totality to man's being, but is equally aware of the inexplicable disorder at the centre of existence. Hugo insists that we can but oscillate between the ideal and the real, since man (as Sartre echoes) is caught in a perpetual instability of being. As such, Hugo’s work aligns Romantic voyance with a distinctly existentialist perspective, indicating that both can in fact operate in tandem. A parallel reading of the two can thus serve a double imperative for my reflections on Sartre: firstly, to explore Nik Farrell Fox’s recent argument that the tension between a post-modern sense of despair and a modernist longing for meaning is the drive and not the stumbling block of Sartre’s thinking; and secondly, to reinsert his literature more prominently back into Sartre Studies by way of its effectiveness in performing this fundamental ambiguity through an emphasis on the creative and the unfixed
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