Julien Gracq Studies

Abstract

Julien Gracq (1910–2007) was generally considered to be the doyen of French letters at his demise on 22 December 2007, aged ninety-seven. Born Louis Poirier in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil (Maine-et-Loire), Gracq took his nom de plume in 1939 at the time his first novel, Au château d’Argol, was published. Professor agrege of history and geography, notably at the Lycee Claude-Bernard in Paris from 1947 until his retirement in 1970, Gracq began writing fiction almost by accident. His works, published by the Librairie Jose Corti, were collected in the Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, under the masterly direction of Bernhild Boie. Translated into twenty-six languages, they touch on all genres: novels, poetry, theatre, short stories, translations, autobiographical essays, literary criticism, and occasional writings, including notebooks, travel journals, prefaces, and interviews. Gracq is one of the rare literary figures to have appeared in the Pleiade and on agregation examinations during his lifetime, a prestige marking him out as an exceptional writer. The exception gracquienne, however, is a double-edged one, indicating not only the singularity of a writer whose syncretic style defies labelling, but also, unfortunately, a dearth of critical interest in his works, especially in the UK and other anglophone academies, as Beatrice Damamme-Gilbert has recently pointed out in French Studies Bulletin. Author of an excellent Bakhtinian study of Gracq’s lyrical remapping of the Nantes of his adolescence, Damamme-Gilbert finds this gap all the more surprising, given Gracq’s stature in France and his familiarity with British cultural history. Among academics based in North America, too, substantive publications are few, with only one book in English. Even in