thesis

"le corps questionne" dans l'oeuvre romanesque de victor hugo

Defense date:

Jan. 1, 1996

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Institution:

Montpellier 3

Disciplines:

Directors:

Abstract EN:

Trough victor hugo novelist's works is blowing on the epic breath of the amorous quest : first, close to nature, love feeling is intuitively discovered as the way to come close to absolute, then, between wandering and banishment, from sweetness dreamed to impossible fusion, the body is racked by life and hurts itself endless against the "eternal secret of the world". To write is an assault perpetrated to found a "surrealist" dimensions ; from allegory and overstates contrasts, mythic figures "are taken form" : in the enjoyment springing of into the whole nature "hydra universe" subdues love which falls prey to rapacity of this "monster, the substance". But the brutal cruelty exerted on the body is redemption, necessary burst : during the fight, when flesh is heading for disaster, soul is delivered. The body, in the various avatars of the appearance is track : it testifies the sacred presence. The style, drawing from visual an metaphoric to theories and aphorisms, weaves the sumptuous complexity of this "talk from prodigy", so near from "modern" novel and "talk from fragment". In the essentially poetic and dramatic show of this "huge parody", theatre meets metaphysic ; the monstrous speech the novelist gives to his "creatures", utters prophesies : "real will born again", for "chaos is a god" and "infinity composed unity. Trough "the labyrinth of universal immanence", from darkness to light, the "possible" is perceived ; the novel, from "the power of words" discloses the chaos, "beginning" ; the twilight of death, melting pot of metamorphosis, subdues body to "gloomy duty of blows", last query, and disperses everybody in the immensity.

Abstract FR:

L'oeuvre romanesque de victor hugo est traversee par le souffle epique de la quete amoureuse : dans l'intimite de la nature, cette "intuition" se revele approche du "sens" ; puis, entre errance et exil, de la douceur revee a l'impossible fusion, le corps "subit la question", se heurte a l'"eternel secret du monde". Ecrire est un assaut pour instaurer une dimension sur-reelle quasi surrealiste- : par l'allegorie, l'exageration des contrastes, les figures mythiques "prennent corps" ; dans l'elan de jouissance de la nature entiere, l'"hydre univers" soumet l'amour a la "devoration" de "ce monstre, la matiere" ; mais la brutalite feroce envers la chair est redemption, eclatement necessaire : tandis que se livre le combat, se delivre l'ame. Le corps, dans les divers avatars de "l'apparence", est trace : "attestation" de la presence ; le style, par le passage du visuel et metaphorique aux theories et aux aphorismes tisse la riche complexite de cette "ecriture du prodige", si proche de "la parole du fragment" et du roman "moderne". Dans la vision essentiellement poetique de "cette immense parodie", theatre et metaphysique se rejoignent : la parole "monstrueuse", que le romancier donne a ses personnages se revele prophetique : "le reel renaitra" car "le chaos est un dieu", et "l'unite se compose d'infini". A travers "le labyrinthe de l'immanence universelle", de l'ombre a la lumiere, le "possible" est percu ; le roman, par la force des mots, revele le chaos, "commencement" ; la mort, "clair obscur" des metamorphoses, soumet le corps a la "lugubre fonction des souffles", "question" ultime, "dissipation de soi-meme" dans l'immensite.