Difference et identite sexuelles dans les romans de malcolm lowry
Institution:
Université Marc Bloch (Strasbourg) (1971-2008)Disciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
The novels of malcolm lowry all call into question the concept of origin. By origin is meant the lost origin of narrativ es whose baffling chronology challenges all our expectations, as well as the missing origin of a discourse whose relationship to truth is deeply problematic. Sexuality, primarily associated with marriage and procreation, is a metapho r of the quest for the lost origin. Love is, first and foremost, a descent into darkness and death : to experience desir e, or to write, is to submit to the experience of terror. Writing, which is defined as an exploration of the limits of m eaning, ultimately rediscovers the missing origin. Marriage, on the other hand, fails : unable to escape her own contradictions, woman is eventually eliminated after a degrading fight with masculine desire. It is friendship between men, a type of relationship which can be enjoyed for its own sake as, to begin with, it does not seem to have any bearin g on the question of truth, which eventually comes to symbolise the rediscovery of meaning.
Abstract FR:
Les romans de malcolm lowry sont hantes par une question, celle de l'origine. Origine perdue d'un temps qui defie toute chronologie ordinaire, origine absente d'une parole dont la reference a la verite est profondement problematique. La sexualite, abordee sous l'angle du mariage et de la procreation, est la metaphore de ce rapport conflictuel a l'origi ne. L'amour est d'abord descente orphique dans les tenebres de la mortt : desirer, comme ecrire, c'est se soumettre a l'experience de la terreur. L'ecriture, mise a l'epreuve des limites, finit par retrouver l'origine tant recherchee. Le mariage n'y parvient pas : la femme, empetree dans ses contradictions, finit par etre eliminee au terme d'une lutte abjecte avec le desir masculin. C'est l'amitie entre hommes, savouree pour elle-meme et, au depart, etrangere a tout enjeu de verite, qui symbolise la redecouverte du sens et restitue enfin la clef des signes.