Les modernistes anglais : du texte litteraire au fait de societe. les mecanismes sacrificiels et les desirs mimetiques dans la societe de l'entre-deux-guerres et leur expression dans la litterature de l'epoque

The english modernists : from literature to social facts. mimetic desires and sacrificial rituals in the english society between the first and the second world wars, and their expressions in the literature of the period

• Auteur / Autrice : Philippe Birgy
• Direction : Jean-Louis Breteau
• Type : Thèse de doctorat
• Discipline(s) : Études anglaises
• Date : Soutenance en 1995
• Etablissement(s) : Toulouse 2

Mots clés

Mots clés contrôlés

Thèmes, motifs

Grande-Bretagne

Modernisme (littérature)

Littérature anglaise -- 20e siècle

Résumé

Plus encore que la fin de siecle, l'entre deux guerres se presente comme une periode d'usure des convictions, et de transition difficile entre un ancien monde et un nouvel ordre. La litterature dite "moderniste" en raison de son inventivite parfois deroutant permet de rendre compte de certains caracteres de la societe anglaise de l'epoque. Nous y trouvons en effet l'expression d'un mimetisme en voie de generalisation, ainsi qu'une resistance a ses effets corrupteurs (manifestee par le desir d'un retour a un ordre traditionnel fortement hierarchise et fonde sur des rituels sacrificiels). Notre etude est informee par les theses de rene girard. Elle couvre un corpus representatif comprenant thomas sterne eliot ("the waste land", "four quartets", the family reunion), aldous huxley ("the defeat of youth", eyeless in gaza, those barren leaves), james joyce ("couterparts", ulysses), david herbert lawrence (mr noon, lady chatterley, women in love, "the ladybird", the plumed serpent), katherine mansfield ("the garden party" et autres nouvelles), ezra pound (the cantos et certains de ses poemes de jeunnesse), virginia woolf (orlando a biography, the waves), and william butler yeats.

Even more than the turn of the century, the inter-war period has been perceived as a difficult transition from an old world to a new order, when most convictions came under attack of an ambient skepticism. The type of litterature that has been termed "modernist", owing to its often arresting originalty, helps us to account for certain characteristics of the english society over the period. There, we can find the expressions of mimetic conducts (fastly developing at that time), as well as a resistance to their corruptive effects (in the form of a desire to come back to a traditional and strongly hierarchized order partly founded on sacrificial rituals). The study is informed by rene girard's theses. The list of works under study includes thomas sterne eliot ("the waste land", "four quartets", the family reunion), aldous huxley ("the defeat of youth", eyeless in gaza, those barren leaves), james joyce ("couterparts", ulysses), david herbert lawrence (mr noon, lady chatterley, women in love, "the ladybird", the plumed serpent), katherine mansfield ("the garden party" and other short stories), ezra pound (the cantos and some of his early poetry), virginia woolf (orlando a biography, the waves), and william butler yeats.