French Literature Reviews - 2026
É Bouygues, F. Marchal-Ninosque (eds.), Genèse des seuils
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics
Genèse des seuils
Edited and with an introduction by Élodie Bouygues and France Marchal-Ninosque
PUFC, no. 1452, coll. Annales littéraires no. 994, série Jacques Petit no. 129, 2019, 16 euros
This volume brings together 17 papers presented at the international conference held in January 2013, organized by the Universities of Franche-Comté and Lausanne. The significance of this conference lay in highlighting a subject rarely examined by researchers: the peritext of the literary work, analyzed here from a strictly genetic perspective based on the work of Gérard Genette. The joyful wisdom dear to the thinker combines here with a rigorous taxonomy of the various forms of paratext, even though he acknowledges that the inventory remains incomplete. This volume is valuable for placing the question of paratext composition—observed exclusively and in a thoroughly innovative way through writers' manuscripts—at the heart of authorial self-representation. The study of archives also opens up a still largely unexplored field known as "editorial genetics," shedding light on the existence of a paradoxical editorial auctoriality. The volume features a theoretical introduction by the editors (Élodie Bouygues and France Marchal-Ninosque) and is accompanied by an index and a bibliography.
Contents
Élodie Bouygues, France Marchal-Ninosque: Introduction
IN MEMORIAM
Catherine Viollet: Subverting the Thresholds and Norms of Autobiography: Christiane Rochefort, Ma vie revue et corrigée par l’auteur
PART ONE, GENESIS OF PARATEXTS
Élodie Bouygues: Allographic Naming in the Posthumous Poems of Jean Follain
France Marchal-Ninosque: The Question of the Title in the Manuscripts of Claude Louis-Combet: A Matter of Titulature?
Christian Estrade: Titling and Intertitling, or Giving Life to the Formless: Le Bal des folles by Copi
Julie Lablanche: The Function of the Epigraph in the Discourses of the Academy of Sciences, Belles-Lettres and Arts of Besançon in the 18th Century
Claudia Amigo Pino: The Thresholds of a Dead Work: The Prefaces to Roland Barthes's Vita nova
Françoise Tilkin: On the Threshold of Histoire de ma vie: The Three-Version Preface to Casanova's Memoirs (1791, 1794, 1797)
PART TWO, GENETICS AND THE GENESIS OF THRESHOLDS
Daniel Maggetti: Ch. F. Ramuz's Adam et Ève: Genetic Questions Surrounding a Rewriting of Genesis
Christian Morzewski: Cross-Genesis and Fertilization from the "Story of the Two Brothers" to Jean Giono's Deux cavaliers de l’orage
Olga Anokhina: Manuscript Thresholds in Vladimir Nabokov
Elena A. Di Fiore: The Genesis of the Illustration for J. M. G. Le Clézio's Procès-verbal
PART THREE, PUBLISHING THRESHOLDS, ANOTHER GENESIS
Mônica Gama: On the Use of the Flap: Proposing a Horizon of Expectation in the Paratexts of João Guimarães Rosa
Anne-Christine Royère: Iliazd, Poésie de mots inconnus: Editorial Genetics and Auctorialities
Dominique Perrin: Heuristic Paradoxes of an "Open-Air" Gestation: Publisher's Names and Authors' Names at Le Sourire qui mord (1975-1986)
Sabine Pétillon and André Petitjean: The Margins of the Text: Patrice Chéreau and François Regnault, a Four-Handed Genesis of the Epigraph for the Program-Book of Marivaux's La Dispute
Héloïse Cabiron: Publisher's Blurb and Back Cover: Two Thresholds in the Manuscripts of Louis-Combet (1970–1985)
Index Nominum
Index Operum
The study of paratexts, a term popularized by Gérard Genette, concerns the various elements surrounding a literary work—such as titles, prefaces, and epigraphs—that mediate the reader's encounter with the text. Genetic criticism shifts attention to the creative process by analyzing drafts, notes, and revisions found in authorial archives. By applying this genetic perspective to the threshold of the work, the contributors to Genèse des seuils investigate how these framing devices are constructed and how they evolve during the writing process.
This volume explores the intersection of authorial self-representation and editorial practices, examining the role of the publisher in shaping the presentation of a text. Through case studies ranging from Casanova to contemporary authors, the papers analyze the development of titles, blurbs, and illustrations. Readers interested in the history of publishing and the mechanics of literary composition may find this collection relevant for its focus on the manuscript-based origins of paratextual elements.