L'ambiguite de herbert read

par ANN ARNAUD HARGRAVE

Thèse de doctorat en Études anglaises

Sous la direction de Sylvère Monod.

Soutenue en 1989

à Paris 3 .

mots clés

• Read, Herbert Edward (1893-1968) -- Critique et interprétation

Résumé

De son vivant, herbert read (1893-1968) fut constamment accuse d'inconsequence et d'ambiguite, traits consideres habituellement comme defauts. Cette analyse detaillee de sa vie et de son oeuvre permet de refuter ou d'attenuer cette accusation, en soutenant que la multiplicite meme des roles officiels ou officieux joues par un read polygraphe, ainsi que le fait que ses principaux detracteurs aient neglige la chronologie, sont responsables de nombre de contradictions apparentes. C'est ce que tentent de demontrer les deux premieres sections, qui retracent sa carriere et son itineraire intellectuel. D'autres malentendus de meme nature sont dissipes partiellement par un examen attentif, egalement chronologique, de son esthetique, de sa critique et de sa creation litteraire - cette derniere semblent, de surcroit, prefigurer en secret les positions et la demarche adoptees au grand jour plus tard. En meme temps, ce travail sou- tient l'idee que read, apres s'etre vainement efforce de s'imposer une conduite et des attitudes lineaires, universalistes, conformes a la "raison" au sens etroit, se serait reconnu vers 1930, en conformite avec ses enthousiasmes de jeunesse, relativiste et pluraliste, pronant l'effet benefique - esthetique, individuel et social - du conflit et de la contradiction, recherchant la con- troverse et revendiquant pour lui-meme une ambiguite concue comme positive et creatrice.

Titre traduit

The ambiguite of herbert read

Résumé

In his own lifetime, herbert read (1893-1968) was constantly accused of being inconsistent and ambiguous, characteristics generally considered as faults. This detailed analysis of his life and work enables this accusation to be denied, or at least attentuated, by suggesting that the very multiplicity of read's roles - and his polymathy so little characteristic of his century - together with the little respect so many of his critics show for chronology, are respon- sible for a great many apparent contradictions. The first two sections, retracing his public career and intellectual itinerary, attempt to prove this. Other similar misunderstandings are partially dispelled by a careful chronological examination of his aesthetic theory, of his criticism and of his prose and poetry - his own creative writing seeming, moreover, secretly to prefigure positions openly adopted later. At the same time this study puts forward the idea that read, after vainly attempting to impose on himself linear, universa- list attitudes and behaviour, in conformity with "reason" in the narrow sense, recognized, in the early 1930s, in accordance with certain youthful enthusiasms, that he belonged to a rival philosophical tradition, relativist and pluralist, and from the on, extolling the virtues - aesthetic, individual, social - of conflict and contradiction, deliberately set out to adopt controversial points