Complicity in fin-de-siècle literature
This thesis analyses the representation and creation of complicity in fin-de-siècle French literary culture, exploring how particular genres – from murder fiction to saucy magazines – encouraged the creation of collusive relationships between writers, readers, and critics. After considering relevant...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2021
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| _version_ | 1817932188687007744 |
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| author | Craske, H |
| author2 | Counter, A |
| author_facet | Counter, A Craske, H |
| author_sort | Craske, H |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | This thesis analyses the representation and creation of complicity in fin-de-siècle French literary culture, exploring how particular genres – from murder fiction to saucy magazines – encouraged the creation of collusive relationships between writers, readers, and critics. After considering relevant legal definitions and contexts in the introduction, chapter 1 discusses writers’ moral complicity and literary ‘bad influence’ in Paul Bourget’s Essais de psychologie contemporaine (1883), Un crime d’amour (1886), and Le Disciple (1889). Analysing these texts alongside their reception, I suggest that literary guilt was less a discernible category than a product of external interactions. Chapter 2 considers the imbrication between popular, scientific, and literary representations of crime, highlighting how murder became a source of ironic appropriation in fin-de-siècle literature. The chapter focuses on Rachilde’s Nono (1885) and Émile Zola’s La Bête humaine (1890): narratives whose haunting sense of guilt incriminates both characters and readers, while implicating judicial and moral discourses in unjust judgements. Chapter 3 analyses a polemical media exchange in a little magazine called Le Zig-Zag, and two romans à clefs about Jean Lorrain and Rachilde, written by their mutual friend Oscar Méténier. I examine how this group of avant-garde writers re-appropriated scandal as part of an alternative collective aesthetic and created a sense of collusion by inviting readers ‘in the know’ to unravel half-veiled secrets about their non-normative gender and sexual identities. The final chapter analyses Don Juan, an exemplary ‘revue légère’ (or ‘saucy magazine’) published at the turn of the century (1895–1900). I show that by wielding sex appeal, shared humour, and textual structures appealing for response and involvement, Don Juan created forms of erotic complicity between text, collaborator, and reader. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T19:37:34Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:1f8f91b9-d75f-4ea0-8b44-ef0c4a741ef3 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-09T03:33:57Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:1f8f91b9-d75f-4ea0-8b44-ef0c4a741ef32024-12-01T17:30:45ZComplicity in fin-de-siècle literatureThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:1f8f91b9-d75f-4ea0-8b44-ef0c4a741ef3Journalism and literatureErotic literature, French--History and criticismAdultery--FictionLiterature, ModernDecadence (Literary movement)--FranceInfluence (Literary, artistic, etc.)Freedom of the pressMurder--FictionLaw and literatureAuthors and publishersEnglishHyrax Deposit2021Craske, HCounter, AThis thesis analyses the representation and creation of complicity in fin-de-siècle French literary culture, exploring how particular genres – from murder fiction to saucy magazines – encouraged the creation of collusive relationships between writers, readers, and critics. After considering relevant legal definitions and contexts in the introduction, chapter 1 discusses writers’ moral complicity and literary ‘bad influence’ in Paul Bourget’s Essais de psychologie contemporaine (1883), Un crime d’amour (1886), and Le Disciple (1889). Analysing these texts alongside their reception, I suggest that literary guilt was less a discernible category than a product of external interactions. Chapter 2 considers the imbrication between popular, scientific, and literary representations of crime, highlighting how murder became a source of ironic appropriation in fin-de-siècle literature. The chapter focuses on Rachilde’s Nono (1885) and Émile Zola’s La Bête humaine (1890): narratives whose haunting sense of guilt incriminates both characters and readers, while implicating judicial and moral discourses in unjust judgements. Chapter 3 analyses a polemical media exchange in a little magazine called Le Zig-Zag, and two romans à clefs about Jean Lorrain and Rachilde, written by their mutual friend Oscar Méténier. I examine how this group of avant-garde writers re-appropriated scandal as part of an alternative collective aesthetic and created a sense of collusion by inviting readers ‘in the know’ to unravel half-veiled secrets about their non-normative gender and sexual identities. The final chapter analyses Don Juan, an exemplary ‘revue légère’ (or ‘saucy magazine’) published at the turn of the century (1895–1900). I show that by wielding sex appeal, shared humour, and textual structures appealing for response and involvement, Don Juan created forms of erotic complicity between text, collaborator, and reader. |
| spellingShingle | Journalism and literature Erotic literature, French--History and criticism Adultery--Fiction Literature, Modern Decadence (Literary movement)--France Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.) Freedom of the press Murder--Fiction Law and literature Authors and publishers Craske, H Complicity in fin-de-siècle literature |
| title | Complicity in fin-de-siècle literature |
| title_full | Complicity in fin-de-siècle literature |
| title_fullStr | Complicity in fin-de-siècle literature |
| title_full_unstemmed | Complicity in fin-de-siècle literature |
| title_short | Complicity in fin-de-siècle literature |
| title_sort | complicity in fin de siecle literature |
| topic | Journalism and literature Erotic literature, French--History and criticism Adultery--Fiction Literature, Modern Decadence (Literary movement)--France Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.) Freedom of the press Murder--Fiction Law and literature Authors and publishers |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT craskeh complicityinfindesiecleliterature |