French Writer Research Articles

“A thousand times more painful than death”: Survival and Unspeakability in Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore’s Post-1945 Unpublished Writings

On June 30, 1945, the Jersey Evening Post on the Channel Island of Jersey ran a story boldly titled “Sentenced to Death by Island Nazis: The Story of Two Gallant Frenchwomen.” It was an interview with French Surrealist photographers, writers, sculptors, political activists, Resistance fighters, and life partners Claude Cahun (born Lucy Schwob) and Marcel Moore (born Suzanne

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Jürgen Habermas and the Public Intellectual in Modern Democratic Life

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Jürgen Habermas and the Public Intellectual in Modern Democratic Life

A Study on Chinese and English Transfer in French Writing of L3 French Language Beginners

In order to investigate the language transfer existing in the field of third language acquisition, and to provide effective strategies of learning two or more languages, this research, based on theories related to the third language acquisition and error analysis, collected 32 French compositions written by English majors’ undergraduates as a corpus, analyzed errors in those compositions, and further discussed the negative transfer of Chinese and English in their French learning. Eight types of errors from the lexical and syntactic perspectives were identified in the research findings. What is more, the negative transfer of English and Chinese appeared at both lexical and syntactic level, and the negative transfer of English is more than Chinese. “lexical errors” occupied more than “syntactic errors” in the transfer of English, while syntactic errors existed more frequently than lexical errors in the transfer of Chinese. There are three main reasons for results of transfers: language distance, language exposure, and language frequency, which provide effective strategies for third language acquisition.

Л.Н. Толстой и его франкоязычные корреспонденты об искусстве. Рецепция трактата «Что такое искусство?» во Франции

The article concentrates on the study of French-speaking correspondents’ letters to Tolstoy, the texts of which are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The work aims to identify the French literary context reflected in Tolstoy’s treatise “What Is Art?” The article analyzes the reception of the writer’s views on art in France. The object of the investigation is the multilingualism of the treatise: Tolstoy often gives literary movements, foreign authors, and the names of their works in the original language, since he addresses an educated reader. The treatise’s author follows the classification of contemporary French literature, offered by J. Huret, author of the book “Enquête sur l'évolution littéraire” (Paris, 1891). It was available in Tolstoy’s library in Yasnaya Polyana but has not yet become the object of research in connection with his treatise. The article considers the reception of the treatise “What Is Art?,” published in France in 1898 in two translations at once — by Theodore de Wyzewa and E. Halperin-Kaminsky — and aroused keen interest among French readers. An important part of the research is devoted to the problem of understanding and perception of art, expressed in Tolstoy’s correspondence with French writers and journalists — M. Prevost, P. Sabatier, and R. Doumic. The article examines the works of Russian researchers P.S. Popov and B.V. Gornung, who attempted to identify the range of foreign sources of the treatise “What Is Art?” and determine its place in the field of aesthetics and in the works of Tolstoy.

Poems

Poems Karen Alkalay-Gut (bio) Introduction In many ways it was a miracle that I was born. My parents had escaped from the international city of Danzig on the last nights before Hitler’s invasion after six years of seeking a way out. They were stateless because they had escaped from persecution in Lithuania, but persecution and arrests continued. They became teachers of Esperanto in order to escape to Palestine through the international Esperanto conference in Sweden but were sent back to Danzig for their lack of papers. In August, 1939, they shipped out to Palestine with false papers but were discovered and sent back to Danzig. On the last day it was possible to escape, they received agricultural permits to work in England and were saved. They spent the war in London, and while most children were being sent away from the city, they were determined to raise a family in compensation for the essential abortions during the years of pursuit and the probable loss of their families at home. These poems are part of a manuscript entitled Surviving that is now ready for publication. Although I’ve been writing about my family history ever since I’ve been writing poems, it was the internet, and the information that was and wasn’t there, that intensified my desire to tell as much as I knew. The enthusiasm of Sabine Huynh, a French writer and poet, who translated some of the poems and published them with the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah1 in 2020 as Survivre à Son Histoire, made me realize that these poems are important communication. Some others, which had been written originally in Yiddish, appeared in a Yiddish/Hebrew volume entitled Yerusha and later in Yiddish/English as Inheritance (2018, 2021) with Beit Leyvik press. Since then I have written more and more. Why are they in poetry form and not documents? Because I only have bits of stories and flashes of memories. Perhaps these poems will help me find more information to round out the family history. In any case, I hope they will help others understand a bit more of what was endured. [End Page 1] Family There are so many details I’m missing.I don’t even know the last namesof the mothers of my cousinsin the photo I’m showing you now.Only that the seven sisters were wedand had childrenand died somewhere in the campsor a ditch maybe in Lida, maybe elsewhere.The death of her siblings was enough grieffor my mother to pass on.She never mentioned any of them,Not the wives of her brothers, nother nieces and nephews, but I knowthat at least seven times twomay still be wandering this earth,maybe even wonderingif someone like me exists Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Untitled, Karen Alkalay-Gut, n.d. [End Page 2] She was long gone from homeby the time of the massacrestill catching her breathat her miraculous escape. Who knows when the newscame back to herthat her family had been eraseddisguised as she wasin a foreign town in a tongueshe had never heard before The farmer’s wife told her offfor not cleaning the ring in the tubwhen she washed away her escapethe long weeks on the roadher first soap after so many weeks. Since then she has been scrubbingall evidence of that shame, the dirtof what she left, in order to survive. The Escape What does a Jewish man doin a train full of Nazi soldiersgoing home to Berlin on leavewhen it’s a miracle he escaped Danzigon the night Hitler entered the city? He sits quietly, carrying his bagwith the tools of his tradesmiling just slightlynever saying a wordand his hair turns white. [End Page 3] In the Train Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. Untitled, Karen Alkalay-Gut, n.d. In the trainthe baggage in the carsbump against each other I feel them at this momentin the Museum of...

МАНІФЕСТ СЮРРЕАЛІЗМУ: СПІЛЬНЕ ТА ПРОТИЛЕЖНЕ У СФОРМОВАНОМУ ЖАНРІ

The purpose of this publication is to systematize and generalize information about the Manifesto of Surrealism in the context of finding various factors of influence on the specified modernist direction of culture and art. Leaders of surrealism and researchers of this trend emphasized that it is not only about the methods of creating works and the form of their living, but also about the picture of the world and the type of mentality. In «The First Manifesto of Surrealism» (1924), rational thinking is rejected in favor of dreams, the aimless play of imagination and mental automatism uncontrolled by consciousness. «The Second Manifesto of Surrealism» (1929) proclaims the need to overcome the absurd distinction of supposed opposites (beautiful and ugly, true and false, etc.) to which civilizations and societies that care about the perpetuation of violence are so devoted. The early «sacred texts» of Surrealism caused a chain reaction that spread throughout the Western world within a decade and a half. When Surrealism was born, it was more than just an artistic movement. Surrealism is poetry, painting, and worldview, social and political movement. Surrealism arose in difficult conditions, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when the spiritual crisis of European civilization was evident. One of the most important founders of surrealism is A. Breton, a French writer and poet. Surrealists were looking for a base, a foundation on which they could build the temple of their worldview. One of these foundations is the philosophy of the French thinker A. Bergson, who claimed that the mind is unable to grasp the true nature of phenomena, but only intuition is able to look at a thing and see its true being. According to A. Bergson, reality is perceived not through logical forms, but through the forms of pure «individual vision». When an artist learns the world through «inner contemplation», his art inevitably departs from logically objective reality. The act of creation thus acquires an irrational, mystical character. A dualism of intuition and intellect appears which is inherent in logical thinking.

“Ah! To Become the Balzac of America!”: The Balzacian Subtext of Sister Carrie

“Ah! To Become the Balzac of America!”: The Balzacian Subtext of <i>Sister Carrie</i>

Elemental Air in French Poetry and American Nature Writing

This article discusses elemental air in twentieth-century French poetry and American nature writing, focusing on a comparison of human breathing to wind. Beginning with an overview of Pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximines, it examines select French poets’ expressions about wind. It turns to American nature writers' extensive experiences in the air outdoors. It looks at wind in the desert, prairie, forest, and Alaskan Sierra. Gaston Bachelard’s observations of air in motion serve as a segue to a discussion of elemental phenomenology. Building on the written expressions and experiences of French poets and American nature writers, the section on elemental phenomenology presents the importance of elemental air in philosophy but also in how one feels the many faces of wind and lives with and enjoys it.

Claude-Charles De Peyssonnel as a Researcher of the Crimean Past

The article examines the views on the history, archaeology, and historical geography of the Crimean Peninsula of Claude-Charles de Peyssonnel, a famous French diplomat, traveller, and writer of the second half of the eighteenth century. The Russian and Ukrainian scholarships use the treatises by the former consul to research the Crimean Khanate, the peoples of the Northern Caucasus, and even the Zaporozhian Cossacks, while de Peyssonnel’s historical studies are left aside from the analysis. It has been stated that the Frenchman’s works present one of the first attempts in the Modern Pe- riod to investigate the antiquities of the Crimean Peninsula. De Peyssonnel showed his knowledge of ancient and mediaeval written sources, contemporary cartography and scholarship, as well as the knowledge he got during his diplomatic service at the court of the Crimean Khan. He was particularly interested in the ancient topography of the Crimean Peninsula. Despite his vast knowledge, erudition, and practical wit, the Frenchman’s reflections may not always be called “academic” in the modern sense, for the basic methods and principles of current historical and linguistic research were not yet discovered in his age. Nevertheless, the Frenchman mapped many cities, towns, and settlements, which names he learned from ancient and mediaeval writers. De Peysson- nel’s memoires influenced the next generation of travellers and “armchair” researchers, whose works appeared after the annexation of the Crimea by Russia in 1783, particular- ly influential encyclopaedic travelogues published by Matthew Guthrie, Ebenezer Hen- derson, and Frédéric Dubois de Montpereux in the first half of the nineteenth century.

О первом в России переводе романа М. Пруста «В сторону Свана» (по материалам издательства «Всемирная литература»)

It follows from the materials of the publishing house “World Literature” that it was this publishing house that for the first time in Russia paid attention to the work of Proust and carried out the first translation of several passages from his novel Du côté de chez Swann, thereby laying the tradition of Proust’s translation, which found its continuation in subsequent translations, first of all, in the translations of A.A. Frankovsky. Thus, the first translators of Proust in Russia were not B.A. Griftsov and Frankovsky, as is commonly believed, but an employee of the publishing house “World Literature” Maria N. Ryzhkina, the student of the Literary Studio under the guidance of the founder of the Russian translation school M.L. Lozinsky, who developed the theoretical and practical principles of translation in post-revolutionary Petrograd. What is curious, the publishing house “World Literature” was not mentioned in the well-regarded book “Marcel Proust in Russian Literature” (2000), although A.D. Mikhailov quoted there an article by V.V. Veidle in “The Modern West” magazine which had accompanied the first publication of Proust in Russian, translated by M.N. Ryzhkina. The materials of “The Modern West” magazine and the minutes of the meetings of the Editorial Board of the publishing house “World Literature” make it possible to trace how the collective opinion of the publishing house employees developed about the need to present Proust’s work to the Russian reader, what requirements were put forward for the work of a translator. The introduction of editorial protocols including the discussion of the work of M. Proust and the prospects for its publication in Russia by the “World Literature” publishing house into academic circulation significantly complements the picture of perception of the work of the great French innovative writer in Russia.

Portraits of a Lady: The Self-Presentation of Esther Inglis, Protestant Limner

Esther Inglis (ca. 1570–1624), a Franco-Scottish writer, is known for her manuscript books, written in many handwriting styles and decorated with pen or brushwork in black-and-white or color. About twenty-five of her sixty or so surviving manuscripts contain self-portraits, which until now have not been examined in detail. This essay surveys the developing author portrait in manuscript and print for French women writers, along with portrait engravings and miniatures, considering their influence on Inglis. It shows further how she created a self within the broader context of transnational Protestant humanism and poetics, crossing boundaries of gender, language, and nationality.

Жанры литературного творчества Дени Дидро

The paper aims at revealing the features of the artistic worldview of Denis Diderot, one of the most prominent figures in French culture, a philosopher, prose writer, playwright, art theorist, who made a significant contribution to the literary enlightenment of the French society. The scientific originality of the paper lies in considering the dynamics of the French enlightener’s views and conducting a comprehensive analysis of Diderot’s literary contribution to establishing and developing such literary genres of the era as novels together with “serious comedies” (dramas), which proved to be a historical and literary phenomenon of the Enlightenment. The study of Diderot’s creative work allows the researcher to define him as a versatile personality, original thinker and encyclopaedist. As a result, it has been proved that being a central and paradoxical personality of the Enlightenment era, Denis Diderot consciously combined everyday, theoretical, artistic and philosophical thinking in his literary works, which was manifested in his contribution to the development of literary genres common for the XVIII century and to the establishment of new ones. The analysis of the content of the French writer’s works shows that they are enlightening, since their author as a thinker and writer used a “creative method”, as defined by G. Gachev, that smoothed the sharp distinction between him as an artist, critic and philosopher.

ДИАЛОГ КУЛЬТУР: ОБ ОПЫТЕ ПЕРЕВОДА «ПУТЕШЕСТВИЯ В РОССИЮ» БЕРНАРДЕН ДЕ СЕН-ПЬЕРА

The article is devoted to the analysis of the translation work of Journey to Russia (Voyage en Russie) by the French writer Bernardin de Saint-Pierre in the intercultural communication aspect. The authors study the translation strategies used in their work such as historical stylization, explication, as well as translation commentary. The techniques used by Bernardin himself in translating Russian realities, namely domestication, foreignization, transliteration, are also examined. The translation techniques mentioned above were and are intended to facilitate intercultural communication and dialogue between the cultures of both Bernardin's readers in France and readers of the translations of his travel notes in Russia.

ЯЗЫКОВАЯ РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦИЯ ПАРИЖА В ТВОРЧЕСТВЕ ЖАКА ПРЕВЕРА

Paris is one of the cities where French writers of various eras are most willing to place the action of their works. The article is focused on the depiction of Paris in the works of Jacques Prévert (1900–1977), a famous French poet and screenwriter born in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris and who spent most of his life in the capital. So it seems logical that the city stands separate in his works. The purpose of the article is to analyze the main linguistic means of representation of Paris in Prévert’s poetic and prose texts. The main method of research is linguostylistic and linguoculturological analysis of an authentic literary text. The material for the analysis was selected from the collections “Choses et autres” (“Things and others”, 1972), “Grand Bal du Printemps” (“Great Spring Ball”, 1951), “Histoires et d’autres histoires” (“Stories and more stories”, 1946). Based on the results of the study, a conclusion is made about the specifics of the image of Paris in Prévert’s works, the main linguistic means used in the representation of the city are specified, and prospects for further research in the area are outlined.

Опыт реконструкции истории одного детства: роман П. Модиано «Дора Брюдер»

The article examines the experience of reconstructing a real fate, undertaken in the novel “Dora Bruder” (1997) by the modern French writer Patrick Modiano. The analysis establishes that the lack of documentary information about the life of a Jewish girl who died during the German occupation is filled in the novel with the help of imagination, references to the author’s existential experience, historical and social contexts, and the childhood memories of other people of those times. It is concluded that the reconstruction of Dora Bruder’s childhood and the circumstances of the death of hers actualizes the themes of personal and national history memory in the works of the writer.

Русская литература, Россия и русские в статьях И. Делаво для журнала «Revue des Deux Mondes»

The article outlines the contribution of the French writer and literary critic from the influential Parisian magazine "Revue des Deux Mondes" Hippolyte Delaveau (1808–1862) to the popularization of Russian literature in France, as well as to the orchestration of the image of Russia and Russians in the French cultural consciousness of the 19th century.

Post-Holocaust Culture and Jewish Identity

Post-Holocaust Culture and Jewish Identity Phyllis Lassner (bio) and Victoria Aarons (bio) Titled “Cultural Expressions of Jewish Identities and the Holocaust,” this special issue of The Journal of Jewish Identities explores new directions in scholarly inquiry that emerge when the fields of Holocaust representation and Jewish identities are set in interwoven, critical relationships and in dialogue with each other. Although the impact of the Holocaust on Jewish identities has been an ongoing focus of scholarly investigation and debate, this collection of essays highlights the reflexive, mutually mediated, and interdependent relationship between the two subjects. Despite the manifold differences among evolving Jewish religious and secular denominations and identities, this collection argues that the Holocaust, its collective and historical memory, commemoration, and legacies, has for many Jews, provided a new, questioning, and even disorienting sense of what it means to be Jewish as individuals and as part of a collective identity. Identity, as we will see, is a fluid and in many ways unstable construct informed by geo-political, social, and cultural factors, as well as by the demands and contingencies of individual dispositions and defining interior structures. The Holocaust to a significant extent reshaped and continues to influence Jewish identity. In these essays’ reflexive constructions, we show that traditionally defined, revisionary, and even alienated or ambivalent Jewish identities, provide new perspectives and insights into how the Holocaust, its memory, and legacy might be considered. These complex interrelationships are the subject of the wide range of art and writing that responds to the burgeoning terrors of the pre-Holocaust period, its horrific apocalypse, survival, memory, and commemoration. The scholarly studies in this collection include fragments by those who perished, such as Polish novelist Bruno Schulz, and those who survived, including French writers Lili Berger, Rayzl Zshikhlinski, and Dora Teitelboim. Evolving permutations of Holocaust memory are evinced in the panoply of responses by succeeding generations of artists, filmmakers, and writers. The scholars included in this special issue demonstrate a variety of theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary approaches to the discussion of Jewish identities in relation to the Holocaust. The essays show a rich diversity of genres, writers, artists, and geographies, including France, the United [End Page xi] States, Mexico, Britain, Israel, Hungary, Australia, Poland, and Nigeria, all in an effort to explore different voices and different ways in which identity is understood, constructed, and expressed in response to the events of the Holocaust and their continuing aftermath. The essays address the work of eyewitnesses to the atrocities, as well as second- and third-generation writers, the children and grandchildren of those who experienced the events firsthand and have taken up the memory and legacy of the past. The essays also engage those writers who write from a more distanced perspective in an attempt to wrestle with the defining events of the Holocaust. For example, Nathan Abrams’s research reveals how the acute ambivalence of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick prevented the completion of his film adaptation of Louis Begley’s fictionalized Holocaust memoir. Axel Stähler concludes that Jewish American writers Michael Chabon and Simone Zelitch situate their Jewish identities in reimaginations of the fate of modern Jews. Rebecca Margolis and David Slucki analyze second- and third-generation Australian Jewish writers, focusing on work produced since the turn of the twenty-first century that together “constitute a canon of Australian Jewish writing.” The authors demonstrate that even when there is no personal connection to the Holocaust, artists working in a range of media and aesthetics have felt impelled to respond to the myriad ways in which the destruction of Jews, their communities, and culture have inspired a reexamination of their Jewish identity. In focusing on the interrelated connections among the Holocaust and Jewish identities, these essays examine representations of destroyed, disguised, concealed, and differently expressed Jewish cultures. In turn, our studies show that these individual and collective tragedies and legacies are inflected with dynamic psychological and social influences on developing definitions and protean forms of identity and of the expression of identities. To demonstrate this intricate critical interrelationship, our contributors offer various scholarly approaches that consider fluid and diverse definitions of Jewish identity, including multiple and hybrid denominations, beliefs, observances, and traditions, as well as...

The Works of Charles Sorel in the Context of the Debate on “Vraisemblance” in the French Aesthetics of the 17th Century

The article analyzes the peculiarities of understanding the most important category of verisimilitude (vraisemblance) for the French aesthetics of the 17th century from the point of view of the French writer Charles Sorel, author of the “La vraye histoire comique de Francion” (1623–1633). Sorel attaches great importance to the category of verisimilitude, even to the point that he makes “vraisemblance” the main one for building the evolutionary system of the novel genre. In this case, in order to properly understand his creative and aesthetic views, it seems necessary to determine what exactly he understands by verisimilitude. Considering two fundamental aspects of the category of verisimilitude of the 17th century – rhetorical and mimetic – we analyze the particularities in the understanding of the category of verisimilitude by Sorel. Sorel rejects everything that concerns the rhetorical aspect of verisimilitude, that is, he denies everything that concerns the moralizing attitude of the work, focusing on the mimetic aspect, that is, on the proper embodiment of reality in a work of fiction. Nevertheless, despite the apparent similarity of Sorel’s position with the concept of mimesis, when analyzing his works, we see that his views are so different from the generally accepted model, allowing researchers to talk not about mimesis, but about Sorel’s counter-mimesis. This position anticipated the specifics of the literature of libertinage of the 18th century and the laws of realism in the literature of the 19th century.

Концепция «инфраординарности» в произведениях Жоржа Перека

The article is devoted to the concept of “the infra-ordinary” in the work of the French writer Georges Perec. The purpose of the study is to define the notion of “the infra-ordinary” and establish its forms in the poetics of this author. This concept often appears in his works, although it may not be directly indicated. To this day, the meaning of “the infra-ordinary” remains poorly clarified, because it is difficult to find support for its understanding in the author’s texts, while it occupies one of the main places in his poetics. Perec articulates the term “the infra-ordinary” in one of his little-known essays, yet “the infra-ordinary” as an approach to writing is found in both his early and later texts. The indeterminacy of “the infra-ordinary” is largely connected with the multi-valued functioning of the concept of “everyday life” in Perec’s texts. This paper discusses the general problems of the concept of everyday life, the emergence of the concept of “the infra-ordinary”, the features and forms of implementation of “the infra-ordinary” in different texts by Perec. In the end, a conclusion is drawn about the serious significance of “the infra-ordinary” in his works, since it substantiates the author’s attitude both to the material of his writing and to writing itself, being meaningfully connected with the themes of memory, recollections, history, language and reality.

Поль Клодель – читатель Библии

Paul Claudel is a French writer of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, known in Russia for his poetic works of the early period and dramaturgy. His short prose and poetic commentaries on theBible are practically unknown in the Russian-speaking scientific field. Most of his prose heritage consists of translations and commentaries on biblical books, including the apex text Paul Claudel inquires the Song of Songs(Paul Claudel interroge le Cantique des Cantiques). The purpose of this article is to introduce into sci-entific circulation the topic ‘Claudel as a prose writer, author of literary commentaries on the Bible’. It is this part of Claudel’s heritage that needs to be studied so that it would become possible to understand and assess the place of Claudel in the world culture of the 20thcentury. First of all, the paper deals with the method of Claudel’s work with the Bible (daily reading, reference to the works of the Church Fathers and concordan-ces), which forms the poetological foundations of the style. These books shape a creative laboratory from which a method of literary commentary on biblical texts grows. This is how Claudel’s biblical style is born. It can be defined as an attitude to the Scripture not as to a series of messages, but as to images. The preserva-tion of the centuries-old tradition of the Church in the interpretation of the Word leads the writer to a poetic commentary, a ‘Claudelian novel’ with the biblical characters and plot. Claudel makes the drama of the Holy Scripture the center of the reader’s interest, uniting the sacred and the profane, ennobling hypocrisy, direct-ing mimesis to biblical reality, the existence of which Claudel does not doubt. The writer emphasized that his works were exclusively literary. The understanding of the Claudel’s text as literary is deepened not only by the text itself, but by the reader’s experience and readiness to perceive it. Thus, Claudel turns out to be the creator of a new dialogical novel word.