E-rea

Anonymous

Numro 5.2 (2007) Gothic Miscellanies

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Ann Jefferson. Biography and the Question of Literature in France

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Rfrence lectronique Anonymous, Ann Jefferson. Biography and the Question of Literature in France, E-rea [En ligne],5.2|2007, document 2, mis en ligne le 15 octobre 2007. URL : http://erea.revues.org/647 DOI : en cours d'attribution diteur : Laboratoire dtudes et de recherche sur le monde anglophone http://erea.revues.org http://www.revues.org Document accessible en ligne l'adresse suivante : http://erea.revues.org/647 Document gnr automatiquement le 11 juin 2010. Tous droits rservs

Ann Jefferson. Biography and the Question of Literature in France

Anonymous

Ann Jefferson. Biography and the Question of Literature in France

Ann Jeffersons provocative study, Biography and the Question of Literature in France, examines not only the relationship between literature and biography but also the critical discourse that has accompanied what she calls the blur of generic boundaries, blending biography with autobiography, or fiction with reportage and the essay. Jeffersons limpid prose makes this study a pleasure to read. She opens her study with the eighteenth century when the term biography first entered the French language and examines literature in the modern sense of the term as it began to take form in the mid-eighteenth century. Having established the vivifying give and take between biography and literature, an exchange which, Jefferson claims, encouraged authors to revise, even contest the sacrosanct fixity of literature as an exclusively aesthetic enterprise, she devotes chapters to, among others, Rousseau, Hugo, Gautier, Verlaine, Mallarm and Baudelaire before turning to Gide, Neval, Michel Leiris, PierreMichon, MaxJacob, RolandBarthes, RogerLaporte and JacquesRoubaud. Jefferson further argues for disregarding the distinction between biography and autobiography, arguing instead that the contemporary concept of life writing is more appropriate to her undertaking. Jefferson devotes considerable attention to biography as a marginal perspective within what might more properly be called autobiography, literary history, criticism and the essay and then traces the emergence of biography as a central concern of literature to the nearly simultaneous appearance of VictorHugos 1856 Contemplations and CharlesBaudelaires 1857 Les Fleurs du mal where the poet is the central figure in a staged biography. This, she claims, can be seen as an attempt at reinventing poetry. Acknowledging PhilippeLejeunes assertion that Hugo succeeded precisely because he allowed his work to speak for him, Jefferson describes Hugos practice as central to the Romantic aesthetic. While one can admit, as Jefferson claims, a presumed autobiographical basis [] inherited from Romanticism, her comparison of Hugo with Byron whose life and work were entirely consubstantial seems forced. More accurate is her later suggestion that Hugos poetic life was one of contemplation rather than passion. Jeffersons distanced and analytical approach to these two seminal works leads
E-rea, 5.2 | 2007

Ann Jefferson. Biography and the Question of Literature in France

her to insist upon Baudelaires reversal of his already ground-breaking literary portraits, in order to turn the very idea of poetry into a radical question about its nature and origins. In the chapter devoted to PierreMichon, Jefferson takes this idea of radical questioning and revision even further and so continues her investigation of the nature and origins of literature. Her reading of Michons lives be they of saints, artists, artists models, neighbors or family explores the ways in which Michon authorized himself to write and the ways in which he attempted to answer the question he himself formulated in Rimbaud le fils: What is it that endlessly relaunches literature? What is that makes men write? The answer to that question lies in his work. Rather than being finished products or exemplary tales, Michons lives are forever unfinished and unrealized. This is because they are intended to remain a source of inspiration, even incomprehension. As Jefferson argues they are models to be meditated and emulated in pursuit of a belief that is necessary for the production of the literature that portrays them. The circularity is deliberate and is yet another illustration of Jeffersons thesis, namely that literature, at its best, is forever open to invention and revision. Jefferson herself notes that women, except for Madame de Stal and several references to MargueriteDuras, NathalieSarraute and AnnieErnaux, are absent from her study. This, she claims, is to be explained by the relative invisibility of women writers in the history of French literature and by the fact that their challenges to literature, such as GeorgeSands use of the idealist novel, or MargueriteDurass blurring of generic boundaries between fiction and autobiography, were conducted in marginal forms. Given the tenor of the entire study, one can only regret that choice. This being said, Biography and the Question of Literature in France is an admirable study, part theory, part history and satisfying on both grounds. Rfrence(s) JEFFERSON, Ann. Biography and the Question of Literature in France. Oxford University Press, 2007, 426 pp., 88.73, ISBN 978-0-19-927084-2. Pour citer cet article
Rfrence lectronique Anonymous, Ann Jefferson. Biography and the Question of Literature in France, E-rea [En ligne],5.2|2007, document 2, mis en ligne le 15 octobre 2007. URL : http://erea.revues.org/647

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E-rea, 5.2 | 2007