Genette's Theory Research Articles

It's no time for sound bites: The praxis of travesty via the New Labour of political comedy

ABSTRACTThis article explores the concept of ‘travesty’ as a form of satirical praxis in relation to contemporary political comedy. It suggests that this genre has moved away from the radical, heavily satirical work of the 1980s and early 1990s, and is doing something new that problematizes the notion of satire. Using Genette's theory, it seeks to clarify that the praxis of travesty, lost somewhere in the nineteenth century, has returned, and is distinct from the related comedic forms, parody and pastiche. It will argue that this has special relevance in defining the representation of the ‘real’ with reference to television representations of New Labour. It questions Genette's distinction that a text (here ‘the actor’ and the real person represented) can be either imitation or transformation, but not both. Its case study is Alistair Beaton's 2007 The Trial of Tony Blair and Robert Lindsay's performance as Blair is analysed. The article concludes by positing the importance of the actor's ‘legacy’, and examines what significance this may have for the playing of the real.

An Attempt to Apply Gérard Genette's Model of Hypertextuality to Najīb Mafū's Malamat al-arāfīsh

This paper attempts to apply Gérard Genette's model of hypertextuality to Najīb Mafū's Malamat al-arāfīsh in order to demonstrate the problem of employing theories of literature developed in the West to the Arabic novel. The paper begins with a brief outline of the principal terms of Genette's hypertextuality before examining how Arab popular narrative and religious myth are used in Malamat al-arāfīsh. By reworking some of the principles of sīra into a modern literary context, Mafū produces a more indigenous style of novel, which exploits the romantic vision of sīra and Islamic legend to convey themes relating to man's social and existential problems. Genette's theory fails to account properly for the genre transformation effected in arāfīsh and for the intertextual relationships Mafū sets up to confirm certain themes and messages. The conclusion is therefore that, like other theories of literature developed with the western canon in mind, Genette's model cannot be applied to the Arabic novel without modification.

An Invitation to Buy and Read: Paratexts of Yiddish Books in Amsterdam, 1650-1800

A book without preface is like a body without soul. —Rabbi Meir Crescas, The Book of the Tashbets (Amsterdam, 1741) 1 Much can be gleaned from an introduction or preface about the book to which it is prelude, the author, his ideas, and their context.1 These texts have a distinctive structure and a specific logic, however, and they enable students of book history to propose another angle of research that aims at showing the place and position of the printed matter within a cultural setting. This can be an especially fruitful terrain in the world of Yiddish:a vernacular of the Ashkenazi Diaspora of Europe, a language that Jews spoke throughout the continent regardless of frontiers, a language that formed and united a people and helped forge its unique cultural blend. This was not the Jewish Latin—a fate that befell the scholarly, highbrow Hebrew—Yiddish was a vibrant, living vernacular. Yiddish paratexts of the early modern era can therefore shed light on books, their status and role in Ashkenazi society, and their importance to Jewish culture in Europe. The theory of paratexts, as outlined by Gerard Genette, focuses on works of fiction and describes them as a "threshold of interpretation."2 Paratexts, whether written or devised by authors, publishers, or any other promoter, are designed to persuade people to buy and read the book and [End Page 31] to encourage them to receive the volume in the way they consider appropriate. Paratexts entice the reader to delve into the book and provide clues about how it is constructed, how it was conceived, and its object. The study of paratexts therefore deals with the sociology of literature, the intellectual background of authors, texts and their environment, and their impact on literary criticism. Paratexts enable us to reach beyond a "naïve" approach to literature and reveal an interim stage in book production usually considered to be a merely technical phase but in fact of much greater importance. Paratexts are not external but internal, ulterior literary devices that represent a legitimate section of literary criticism and booklore. Despite Genette's theory, however, paratexts do not operate in one direction only into the text; often the text dictates the structure and content of its paratexts, taking the reader beyond the confines of the text.3 While an author may seek acclaim as an artist and while the publisher may hope for financial success, paratexts operate within a web of considerations. Their object is to support the book while placing it within a wider cultural setting—dominant literary circles of the day, the potential audience among religious and other sections of society, financial considerations, and matters relating to form and content and their interrelation. Authors may not always be interested in these questions, but publishers definitely are. Their concern is to support the author and his book, and their strategy includes paratexts that place the book within a context. Although most of the paratexts discussed here relate to nonfiction, this is no reason not to employ Genette's theory. Their basic function is no different from paratexts in fiction: namely, to persuade people to buy and read the book and to try to influence the way it is received. Clearly, readers view the text of a novel or poem from a specific perspective and exercise a certain freedom in forming an interpretation, so these paratexts may focus on intellectual, ethical, and aesthetic areas not touched on in nonfiction. After all, there is a world of difference between buying an anthology of short stories and buying a grammar or mathematics textbook. Yet this is more a question of content than of form or structure. Nonfiction has its own concerns, and these are reflected in its paratexts, too. As will be seen, publishers of nonfiction were just as keen to control the process of book production, maybe even more so. 2 From its earliest days, the market for Yiddish...

Allende, Buitrago, Luiselli: aproximaciones teóricas al concepto del ‘Bildungsroman’ femenino by Leasa Y. Lutes

MLRy 98.2, 2003 491 light of Gerard Genette's theory of hypertextuality. Forne uses Genette's theory, as laid out in his book Palimpsestes (Paris: Seuil, 1982), to examine the rewriting of the memoirs of former pirate Alexander Olivier Exquemelin in the two novels by the Mexican writer,with particular focus on form and theme. Following the structure of the doctoral thesis on which La pirateria textual is based, in the firstthree chapters of the book Forne establishes the con texts forher subsequent reading of Boullosa's work in the last two chapters. She firstsituates the 'hypertexts' Son vacas, somospuercos and El medico de los piratas within Boullosa's fictional work as a whole, as well as within the more general context of trends in contemporary Latin American literature, in particular the 'new' historical novel. Forne also undertakes a survey of the existing criticism of Boullosa's work, taking issue especially with postmodernist interpreta? tions ofthe firstnovel, Son vacas, somospuercos, as well as taking critics to task fornot reading the 'hypotext', Exquemelin's Los piratas de America (1678). The third chap? ter deals precisely with the memoirs of the pirate and also explains Genette's theory of hypertextuality in some detail. In her analysis of the Mexican writer's novels in the final chapters, Forne points out that, while Boullosa's hypertexts remain faithful to the original plot of Exquemelin's work, there is evidence in both of a difference in style. In the analysis of Son vacas, somos puercos (chapter 4), for example, Forne highlights textual 'amplifications', such as the inclusionof new characters such as Ella and Negro Miel, and thematical 'transformations', including the stronger presence of female characters and the greater role of the indios bravos. Forne also maintains that there is a greater subjective presence on the part of the narrator-protagonist in Boullosa's 1991 novel, which, she underlines, is neither a subversive nor an alternative version to Exquemelin's memoirs but a complementary one. Similarly, Forne reads El medico de los piratas as a further variation of the hypotext with a more objective narrator than in the earlier novel. While more consideration might have been given to adapting the style and structure ofthe original Ph. D thesis to the formof a book, there is no doubt that this is a rigorous and well-executed study of the relationship between Exquemelin's memoirs and the two novels by Boullosa using Genette's theory. Goldsmiths College, University of London Claire Lindsay Allende, Buitrago, Luiselli: aproximaciones teoricas al concepto del 'Bildungsroman' femenino . By Leasa Y. Lutes. (Currents in Comparative Romance Languages and Literatures, 87) New York: Lang. 2000. 130 pp. ?29. ISBN 0-8204-4472-3. This work by Leasa Lutes is an original comparative exercise which brings together the three women writers of the title in the light of new feminist interpretations of the concept of the Bildungsroman or novel of formation. One of the qualities of this book is that it appears as a contribution to the development of the body of scholarship de? voted to the 'female Bildungsroman' not only in the field of Latin American women's writing but in the area of women's writing in general. The purpose of the study is to analyse the differentvariations of formation as experienced by the protagonists of three novels by three writers from Latin America: Isabel Allende's Eva Luna (1987), Fanny Buitrago's Senora de la miel (1993), and Alessandra Luiselli's Reina de corazones (1986). In order to produce an organized analysis of the development of these characters according to or against the model of formation, the study is divided into fivechapters which attempt to achieve a thorough examination of the process of development of the women in the texts, Eva, Teodora, and Anna respectively. Chapter 1 is conceived as an introduction to the study and attempts to establish the theoretical framework which will be used foranalysing the differentworks. It offersa 492 Reviews quite up-to-date literature review in which the author provides a brief history ofthe term Bildungsroman, its development and main problematic aspects, and its application to narrative works, especially by women. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 concentrate on...

Presenting Walt Whitman: "Leaves-Droppings" as Paratext

Uses Gerard Genette's theory of the "paratext" to examine how "Whitman manipulates the elements surrounding Leaves of Grass and turns them into 'Leaves-Droppings'" (the group of nine reviews of Leaves, Emerson's letter to Whitman, and Whitman's reply to Emerson) appended to the 1856 edition of Leaves and arranged by Whitman so as to build a "narrative of the virtues of the American rude tongue."

Unlikely stories: causality and the nature of modern narrative

Brian Richardson. Unlikely Stories: Causality and Nature of Modem Narrative. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1997.219 pp. $30.00 cloth. In field of narrative theory, new publications are a common occurrence, but not so for new approaches. This is not to say that recent narrative theorists do not have their own insights or observations regarding narration, or that their critical work is not valuable, but much of what has been published in last twenty years, from Todorov's Introduction to Poetics through seemingly endless introductions to narrative that have followed in Todorov's wake, has consisted primarily of (usually uncredited) rewordings of Gerard Genette's Figures (especially section published in English as Narrative Discourse) that often do little more than offer more illustrations of Genette's theory, or argue over terminology or small 'errors' Genette made in expressing certain concepts. Yet while it may be argued that at this stage of narrative theory's development it is unlikely that a theoretical work as significant as Narrative Discourse or Bakhtin's Dialogic Imagination will be forthcoming, there is still a great deal of work to be done in this field. In Unlikely Stories: Causality and Nature of Modern Narrative, Brian Richardson succeeds in arguing that causality, the single most undertheorized aspect of narrative transaction, is important feature of narration and should be examined further by narrative theorists and critics (182). His book provides excellent starting place for such examinations. Richardson states that subject of his book is the connection between multiple story lines, interpretation of text, sequencing of episodes, and casual system governing world of fiction (13). The text is divided into two sections, first of which is concerned with Richardson's theoretical approach to literary narrative. In these chapters Richardson attempts to clarify and reconceptualize varied strands of causality in literature; discusses causal settings and four types of probability that govern fictional world; and moves his discussion into narrative segments, which in turn leads to longer critical chapters. In second section, Richardson applies his theories to a large number of literary works. He notes that an all too common failure of literary history is a sweeping theory based ona paucity of examples (63). This charge can certainly not be made against Richardson himself, who makes no sweeping claims, and yet gives us impressive number of examples. In his first chapter, Richardson defines cause as condition that occasions change in events. He adds that just as modernist and postmodernist narratives interrogate boundary of fact and fiction, readers must use their own acumen to determine existence and direction of causal connections (43-44). Of particular interest is his discussion of monistic fallacy: characters' behavior that rests on metaphysical assumptions that support a specific ideology (52). In fact, he says, free will is distinct from ontological issues. As Richardson is obviously interested in determinism and in narratology, it is perhaps curious that he does not cite Bakhtin (here or elsewhere), but despite this omission, his argument for cause and free will of characters, and his arguments against dogma in criticism, are convincing and useful (60). In important second chapter, we find Richardson's four types of probability settings that govern fiction: 1. supernatural; 2. Naturalistic, which includes recognizable and repeatable actions with plausible consequences; 3. chance worlds, in which more unlikely events, more evident author is; 4. authorial excursions into fictional worlds (metafictions) in which characters can take control from author (a section that would profit from a discussion of Bakhtin's dialogism). …

Identity Crises: Positions of Self in Simone de Beauvoir’s Memoirs

Identity Crises: Positions of Self in Simone de Beauvoir's Memoirs Kim Carter-Cram An explosion of interest has occurred recently in the field of literary analysis which is centered on the study of autobiography. Autobiography is a literary genre which unites not-quite-truths with not-quite-fictions in a narrative which explores an event or events in the life of its author through the eyes of an individual of the same name. Well-known autobiographical theorist Philippe Lejeune, in his several volumes of criticism, attempts to define autobiography as a genre and concludes that it is: a retrospective prose narrative written by a real person concerning his own existence, where the focus is his individual life, in particular the story of his personality (4). He further emphasizes that autobiog­ raphy is exceptional in nature precisely because of its retrospective posture and because the author, the narrator, and the protagonist must be identical (5). This concept is based largely on Gerard Genette's theory of autodiogetiquenarrative voices, and establishes autobiography outside the classification of fiction. Aside from the fact that Lejeune's definition of autobiography presupposes within its rhetoric (by using the pronoun he as if it were a genderless universal) that the author of autobiography is and will be a male author, a second problematic is that Lejeune, in defining autobiography as in particular [,] the story of his [that is, of a real person's] personality makes the assumption that an individual's personality and identity are one and the same thing. In order for an author to write the story of her or his personality in the way Lejeune suggests, this identity, or person­ ality has to already exist as an entity, towards which (or, in the case of autobiography as retrospective narrative, back at which) the author can look and analyze its existence in the text. Lejeune's implicit definition of identity implies a telos, or an end, which is ostensibly reached at some point in the life of the individual in question, thereby creating a fixed and consistent personality which is seen as she or he acts and reacts to experiences throughout life. Therefore, for Lejeune, an essential characteristic of one's identity (or personality) is that it is a work in progress which will be

Lighting the Way: The Temporal Dimension of Narrative in Psychotherapy

^ Lighting the Way: The Temporal Dimension of Narrative in Psychotherapy Jan Marta Classical psychoanalysis emphasizes the role of the past. It assumes that the memories recounted in therapy sessions are screen memories of earlier, more determinant ones; it questions the stated motivations and feelings (or manifest content of the sessions) as a present defense against past unconscious sexual trauma; and it anchors, with the weight of the past, the fantasies expressed for the future. Two major classical psychoanalytic beliefs about time, the determinism of the past and temporal linearity, inform this type of interpretation. But this temporal view forecloses the contribution to the analysis of the present and the future, and prematurely closes, during the time of the therapy, the way of the future. What are the dangers of this foreclosure? How might one open the discourse of psychotherapy to the present and an infinitely regressing future? To what advantage? How can time be used to help patients move beyond their hurt and disappointment? In this article I explore the potential of literature and literary theory and methodology to illuminate the discourses of psychoanalytic theory and psychotherapy practice, with specific reference to the temporal dimension of narrative in psychoanalytic discourse. More particularly , I use Gérard Genette's literary theory and methodology, as elaborated in Figures III, to shed a powerful light on the temporal dimension of narrative in psychoanalytic or psychotherapy discourse.1 I examine the determinism of the past and the linearity of time in theoretical, literary, and clinical texts. In D. M. Thomas's The White Hotel, hysteria is prophecy, not lunacy, and determinism is undermined, indeed overthrown . In Marie Cardinal's The Words to Say It, repetition and poetic association subvert any strictly linear ordering of the psychoanalytic process. After illuminating through Genette's theory and methodology Literature and Medicine 13, no. 1 (Spring 1994) 143-157 © 1994 by The Johns Hopkins University Press 144 THE TEMPORAL DIMENSION OF NARRATIVE IN PSYCHOTHERAPY the means by which these two literary narratives so effectively challenge classical psychoanalytic notions of time, I use Genette's work to elucidate the temporal structure of two excerpts from a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy2 Like their literary counterparts, the first excerpt emphasizes the importance of the future, and the second highlights the nonlinearity of time. My analyses of both excerpts demonstrate the therapeutic value of attunement to the temporal dimension of narrative in psychotherapy and the role of Genette's theory in creating that awareness of time, with implications for the theory, research, and practice of clinical, life, and literary narratives. First, however, I must elaborate on notions of time in classical psychoanalytic discourse. In An Elementary Textbook of Psychoanalysis Charles Brenner states clearly the two fundamental hypotheses of psychoanalysis: "the principle of psychic determinism, or causality, and the proposition that consciousness is an exceptional rather than a regular attribute of psychic processes";3 in other words, the psychic determinism of human experience and the existence and determinism of the unconscious. His explanations of the first fundamental hypothesis make clear the overriding importance for psychoanalysis of the past, both in the present and for the future: Let us start with the principle of psychic determinism. The sense of this principle is that in the mind, as in physical nature about us, nothing happens by chance, or in a random way. Each psychic event is determined by the ones which preceded it. Events in our mental lives that may seem to be random and unrelated to what went on before are only apparently so. In fact, mental phenomena are no more capable of such a lack of causal connection with what preceded them than are physical ones. Discontinuity in this sense does not exist in mental life.4 This determinism of the past applies to everyday life and, as Brenner illustrates, to psychopathology. This first hypothesis or principle, that of psychic determinism, is connected to the second, "the existence and significance" of the unconscious : In fact, the relation between these two hypotheses is so intimate that one can hardly discuss the one without bringing in the other also. It is precisely the fact that so much of what goes on in our Jan Marta 145...

Figure et style : concepts esthétiques dans la théorie du discours de Gérard Genette

Genette's theory of the conditions of production of literariness slips into an aesthetics, concerned by effects on readers. Nowhere is this clearer than in his use of the concepts of figuration and style — suggesting that no poetics can be independent of a reader-informed aesthetics.