French Literature Reviews - 2026
Writing the Person
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics
WRITING THE PERSON
Essays in honor of Daniel Madelénat
Edited by Simone BERNARD-GRIFFITHS, Véronique GÉLY and Anne TOMICHE
Masks worn on the stages of theater, society, or intimacy; figures of the self; definitions of the subject, whether lyrical or philosophical: these are the principal facets of the person that this volume explores, building upon the scholarship of Daniel Madelénat dedicated to intimism, autobiography, and biography.
The studies gathered here examine the diverse modes and genres (auto/biography, diary, novel, poetry, essay, theater) adopted by writing that focuses on the person. The volume first demonstrates how the "intimist drive," while particularly prominent in the 19th century, permeates literature as a whole. It then explores the (auto)biographical forms that writings of the self or the other may take. Finally, the book broadens its scope to address questions of identity, self-awareness, and the wanderings of the ego.
Révolutions et Romantismes Series
JANUARY 2004
382 pages
ISBN 2-84516-230-8
27
Bookstore distribution: C.I.D.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. THE INTIMATE, INTIMACY, AND INTIMISM IN WRITING
BRUNEL, Pierre: From Coppée to Rimbaud
HERVIER, Julien: From epic to intimism: Ernst Jünger’s diary-keeping, or from the battlefield to the garden
GÉLY, Claude: From the private diary to the spiritual journal: Measure and immoderation of time in the diary of Eugénie de Guérin
GIRAUD, Nadine: From cloister to garden, or intimism questioned in Le Culte du moi
AURAIX-JONCHIÈRE, Pascale: Spaces of intimacy in George Sand's Indiana and Valentine
GÉLY, Véronique: Psyche's chamber: Toward a mythology of intimacy
LÉONARD-ROQUES, Véronique: Versailles deserted, Versailles intimate
CHEVREL, Yves: Strindberg in search of a theater of intimacy: From Fröken Julie to the Intima Teatern
CHAUVIN, Danièle: The theater of Witkiewicz, or the phantoms of the intimate
MOURA, Jean-Marc: On an exotic literature of intimism: Regarding Pierre Loti's Aziyadé
TOMICHE, Anne: Intimism of a poetry of the impersonal? Francis Ponge and Elizabeth Bishop
PAGEAUX, Daniel-Henri: Writing death: A reading of Francisco Umbral's Mortal y rosa
II. BIOGRAPHIES, AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
MONTANDON Alain Effi's memoirs: On canine autobiographies
COURTINAT Nicolas The soundscape of Lamartine's Les Confidences and Nouvelles Confidences
BACKÈS Jean-Louis Mayakovsky according to Mayakovsky
LECARME Jacques "If I were to write my autobiography...", Drieu la Rochelle
WESTPHAL Bertrand The outrages of time: Thomas Bernhard's autobiographical sequence
LAOUYEN Mounir The figuration of lack in contemporary childhood narrative: Perec, Sarraute, and Robbe-Grillet
GIRAUD Laurent Biography, intimacy, and intimism in C.A. Walckenaer's Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de Jean de La Fontaine
GEFEN Alexandre Memento mori: Exercise and definition of literature in Chateaubriand's Vie de Rancé
MANSAU Andrée The Secret Miracle: An impossible Jewish biography of Borges?
III. THEMATICS OF THE SUBJECT
BERNARD-GRIFFITHS, Simone: Text and pretext: George Sand's first (1834) Lettres d'un voyageur as a quest for identity
RALLO-DITCHE, Élisabeth: The generous subject
RACAULT, Jean-Michel: Adventures of self-awareness and aporias of Reason: On the astronomer episode in Samuel Johnson's Rasselas
ROMAN, Myriam: The hollowing out of the romantic subject: From Dumas to Sartre, from Hugo to Camus
SMADJA, Robert: The wanderings of the ego, from Montaigne and Descartes to Ricœur
The study of the self in literature has long occupied a central place in the humanities, particularly within the traditions of autobiography, memoir, and the diary. This collection explores how diverse genres, including the novel, poetry, and theater, serve as vehicles for articulating the complexities of the subject, self-awareness, and the wanderings of the ego, building upon the scholarship of Daniel Madelénat.
The essays gathered here reflect on the intimist drive, a concept particularly prominent in the 19th century. The volume examines how the person is defined through lyrical or philosophical lenses, exploring (auto)biographical forms and the thematic exploration of the subject. Readers interested in the history of the self-portrait in literature may find these scholarly perspectives relevant.