L’écart entre la littérature considérée comme « sérieuse », et celle qu’apprécient (selon les palmarès de ventes, les clubs et sites de livres) la majorité des lecteurs « non-professionnels » ...(Todorov 2007) est considérable, peut-être plus en France qu’ailleurs. Depuis les débuts du modernisme (fin du XIXe) une intrigue captivante, la vraisemblance, des techniques narratives mimétiques et transparentes – en gros, les qualités « immersives » – sont dévalorisées : la « vraie » littérature est « intransitive », en termes barthésiens, scriptible plutôt que lisible. Et pourtant ce sont là les qualités qui n’ont jamais cessé d’attirer le lecteur moyen, ou plutôt, étant donnée la féminisation de la lecture, la lectrice moyenne, qui lit à la fois pour se faire plaisir et pour s’instruire. « Moyen » comme « middlebrow » a tout de suite des connotations péjoratives : le « moyen » n’est pas loin du « médiocre ». Dans cet article je tente de préciser la signification du terme « middlebrow », et les raisons pour lesquelles il a toujours impliqué un jugement négatif. Je propose une défense de cette littérature mimétique, immersive et lisible qu’évoque le terme, en m’appuyant sur les travaux de critiques comme Marie-Laure Ryan, Jean-Marie Schaeffer, et Raphaël Baroni.
Middlebrow is a derogatory word that connotes blandness, mediocrity and a failed aspiration to ‘high’ culture. However, when appropriated as a positive term to denote that wide swathe of literature ...between the challenging experimentalism of the high and the formulaic drive of the popular, it enables a rethinking of the literary canon from the point of view of what most readers actually read, a criterion curiously absent from dominant definitions of literary value. Since women have long formed a majority of the nation’s reading public, this perspective immediately feminises what has always been a very male canon. Opening with a theorisation of the concept of middlebrow that mounts a defence of some literary qualities disdained by modernism, the book then focuses on a series of case studies of periods (the Belle Époque, inter-war, early twenty-first century), authors (including Colette, Irène Nemirovsky, Françoise Sagan, Anna Gavalda) and the middlebrow nature of literary prizes.
French feminism was central to the theory and culture of Second Wave feminism as an international movement, and 1975 was a key year for the women’s movement in France. Through a critical review of ...the politics, activism and cultural creativity of that moment, from the perspective of both preceding and subsequent ‘waves’ of feminism, this book evaluates the legacies of 1975, and their strengths and limitations as new questions and new conjunctures have come into play. Edited and written by an international group of feminist scholars, it offers both a critical re-evaluation of a vital moment in women’s cultural history, and a new analysis of the relationship between second wave agendas and contemporary feminist politics and culture.
Nick Hewitt wrote wonderfully well about the significance of different places in French history and culture, and in our lives. Colette was a chronicler of places, from the famous childhood house and ...garden in Burgundy, to Brittany, Provence and of course Paris. But as her writing moves across regions and houses, home recurs as a crucial place in the emotional landscape of a human life. Nick was also always attentive to the relationship between canonical and ‘minor’ authors, and to the interplay between socio-political moment and cultural production. In this article home is examined as a vital and recurring theme not only in the work of Colette but also in that of her lesser-known female contemporaries – for home as a place has particular practical and emotional meanings for women.
Nick Hewitt wrote wonderfully well about the significance of different places in French history and culture, and in our lives. Colette was a chronicler of places, from the famous childhood house and ...garden in Burgundy, to Brittany, Provence and of course Paris. But as her writing moves across regions and houses, home recurs as a crucial place in the emotional landscape of a human life. Nick was also always attentive to the relationship between canonical and ‘minor’ authors, and to the interplay between socio-political moment and cultural production. In this article home is examined as a vital and recurring theme not only in the work of Colette but also in that of her lesser-known female contemporaries – for home as a place has particular practical and emotional meanings for women.
Stardom in postwar france Gaffney, John; Holmes, Diana
2008., 20080115, 2008, 2011-02-08, 20070101, Volume:
12
eBook
The 1950s and 1960s were a key moment in the development of postwar France. The period was one of rapid change, derived from post-World War II economic and social modernization; yet many traditional ...characteristics were retained. By analyzing the eruption of the new postwar world in the context of a France that was both modern and traditional, we can see how these worlds met and interacted, and how they set the scene for the turbulent 1960s and 70s. The examination of the development of mass culture in post-war France, undertaken in this volume, offers a valuable insight into the shifts that took place. By exploring stardom from the domain of cinema and other fields, represented here by famous figures such as Brigitte Bardot, Johnny Hallyday or Jean-Luc Godard, and less conventionally treated areas of enquiry (politics de Gaulle, literary Françoise Sagan, and intellectual culture Lévi-Strauss) the reader is provided with a broad understanding of the mechanisms of popularity and success, and their cultural, social, and political roles. The picture that emerges shows that many cultural articulations remained or became identifiably "French," in spite of the American mass-culture origins of these social, economic, and cultural transformations.
A 57-year-old male presented to the emergency department due to sudden growth of a penile mass. On physical exam, the mass was located on the ventral surface of the penis at the level of the corona ...and measured 7cm × 4cm x 3.5cm. Ultrasound suggested that it was cystic in nature. The mass was surgically removed, and final pathology revealed a median raphe cyst.
"Plot", writes Peter Brooks, "is so basic to our very experience of reading, and indeed to our articulation of experience in general, that criticism has often passed it over in silence..." (Reading ...for the Plot, xi). Finding the Plot both explores and helps to redress this critical neglect. The book brings together an international group of scholars to address the nature, effects and specific pleasures of consuming stories. If the central focus is on France and popular literary fiction, the boo.
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