Le chant de l'aulos. Approche du genre elegiaque dans to the lighthouse. The waves the years de virginia woolf

The song of the aulos. A study of the elegiac genre in to the lighthouse, the waves and the years by virginia woolf

• Auteur / Autrice : Barbara Lambert
• Direction : Marie-Françoise Cachin
• Type : Thèse de doctorat
• Discipline(s) : Études anglaises
• Date : Soutenance en 1997
• Etablissement(s) : Paris 7

Mots clés

Mots clés contrôlés

Élégies anglaises

Mots clés libres

Poesie elegiaque anglaise

Résumé

Le 27 juin 1925, alors qu'elle travaillait a la redaction de to the lighthouse, virginia woolf indiquait dans son journal qu'elle souhaitait "inventer un nouveau nom pour (ses) livres" : au lieu de "romans", elle ecrirait desormais des "elegies". Derivee de la lamentation que les grecs prononcaient a l'occasion d'un deuil, l'elegie permet a l'endeuille de sortir de la melancolie. Son operation depend de l'intervention divine de la nature interpellee par le poete. A sa structure ternaire, elle associe un refrain et des jeux d'echos qui suppleent l'absence de l'aulos, de la flute, au son de laquelle etaient accompagnees les elegies de la grece antique. Allusions, citations et motifs mythologiques y abondent. A la renaissance, on assiste a un recentrage de l'elegie sur elle-meme : elle interroge l'acte d'ecrire lui-meme. Aussi la consolation prend-elle valeur d'affirmation de la capacite du langage a exprimer le reel. Deux traditions s'affrontent alors. La tradition pastorale fait de l'intervention divine de la nature le prealable necessaire a l'atteinte de la consolation. S'opposent ici deux courants : l'un, d'inspiration pre-chretienne, debouche sur la consolation; l'autre, d'inspiration paienne, nie la faculte du poete a dire le vrai et le plein, elle le condamne a la melancolie. Fondee sur le rejet d'une consolation qui procede de l'affirmation arbitraire de l'existence divine, la tradition spirituelle fait de la mise a l'epreuve de la foi du poete la condition indispensable a la reconnaissance de l'integrite du langage. To the lighthouse, the waves et the years naissent entre les deux guerres, a une epoque ou, pour reprendre le mot de malcolm bradbury, la nature est desormais percue comme "agressive". En meme temps qu'il faudra montrer si ces trois romans meritent le titre d'elegies, il faudra egalement determiner si celles-ci se rattachent a la tradition spirituelle ou a la tradition pastorale, auquel cas l'atteinte de la consolation parait d'emblee interdite.

On june 27th, 1925, at the time she was working on to the lighthouse, virginia woolf noted in her diary her wish "to invent a new word for (her) books to supplant 'novel'", the word "elegy". The elegy derives from the ritual lament the greeks used to sing so as to commemorate their dead. Its celebration enables the bereaved to escape from melancholy and its operation depends on the divine intervention of nature called upon by the poet. The ternary structure of the elegy is allied to a refrain and echoes fulfilling the function primarily performed by the flute - the aulos - which used to accompany the elegies of antique greece. Allusions, quotations and mythological motifs abound. At the renaissance, the elegy became its own subject : it focused on the act of writing itself. The consolation it provided made one with the affirmation of the capacity of language to convey meaning. Two traditions took root then. The pastoral tradition recognized the divine intervention of nature as indispensable to the providing of consolation. In a pre-christian current, the faculty of the poet to express the real was affirmed whereas it was denied in a pagan current where the poet was condemned to melancholy. At the opposite end, the spiritual tradition was based on the rejection of a consolation that was the result of the arbitrary affirmation of any divine existence. For a poet like donne, the operation of consolation implied the poet's discovery of the authenticity of faith under trial. To the lighthouse, the waves and the years were written between the two wars when nature, to use malcolm bradbury's word, came to be perceived as "aggressive". The purpose of this thesis is to define whether these three novels can be called "elegies" and to determine if they are spiritual or pastoral elegies - which would therefore mean that no consolation can be reached.