1st Edition

Models of Collaboration in Nineteenth-Century French Literature Several Authors, One Pen

Edited By Seth Whidden Copyright 2009

    Contributing to the current lively discussion of collaboration in French letters, this collection raises fundamental questions about the limits and definition of authorship in the context of the nineteenth century's explosion of collaborative ventures. While the model of the stable single author that prevailed during the Romantic period dominates the beginning of the century, the authority of the speaking subject is increasingly in crisis through the century's political and social upheavals. Chapters consider the breakdown of authorial presence across different constructions of authorship, including the numerous cenacles of the Romantic period; collaborative ventures in poetry through the practice of the "Tombeaux" and as seen in the Album zutique; the interplay of text and image through illustrations for literary works; the collective ventures of literary journals; and multi-author prose works by authors such as the Goncourt brothers and Erckmann-Chatrian. Interdisciplinary in scope, these essays form a cohesive investigation of collaboration that extends beyond literature to include journalism and the relationships and tensions between literature and the arts. The volume will interest scholars of nineteenth-century French literature, and more generally, any scholar interested in what's at stake in redefining the role of the French author

    Introduction On Collaboration 1 My discussion of collaboration benefited greatly from the wisdom and comments of Frank Paul Bowman, to whose memory this Introduction is dedicated., Seth Whidden; Part I Collaboration before the Revolution; Chapter 1 How Often Did Authors Write Alone?: Ways of Becoming an Author in Early Modern France, Joan DeJean; Chapter 2 “Le Dîner des philosophes”: Conviviality and Collaboration in the French Enlightenment, John R. Iverson; Part II The Nineteenth Century: A Long Century of Collaboration; Chapter 3 Collaboration and Solidarity: The Collective Strategies of the Romantic Cenacle, Anthony Glinoer; Chapter 4 Smooth Collaboration: Vitalism and Judaism in Erckmann-Chatrian’s L’Ami Fritz, Julia Przybos* Research for this essay was supported by the Professional Staff Congress-City University of New York (PSC-CUNY) Research Award Program.; Chapter 5 Sharing One’s Death: Le Tombeau de Théophile Gautier (1873), Durand Pascal; Chapter 6 Poetry in Collaboration in the 1870s: The Cercle Zutique, “Le Fleuve” and “The Raven”, Seth Whidden; Chapter 7 Erasing Collaboration: The Case of André Gill and Louis de Gramont, Joseph Acquisto; Chapter 8 The Médan Group and the Campaign of Naturalism, Jennifer K. Wolter; Chapter 9 From Illustration to Decoration: Maurice Denis’s Illustrations for Paul Verlaine and André Gide 1 A version of this essay was given at a symposium organized by the University of Toledo in February 2003 in conjunction with the exhibition “Splendid Pages: The Molly and Walter Bareiss Collection of Modern Illustrated Books” held at the Toledo Museum of Art (14 February–11 May 2003)., Frédéric Canovas; Chapter 10 Collective Experiment in Literary Journalism: The Case of La Revue Wagnérienne, Pamela A. Genova; Chapter 11 Rhyparographers: Les Frères Goncourt and Monstrous Writing, Lawrence R. Schehr; Part III The Twentieth Century: Collaboration and Modernism; Chapter 12 Belgian, Modernist, and Avant-garde Literary Journals from the Early 1920s: A Model for Network Collaboration, Daphné de Marneffe;

    Biography

    Seth Whidden is Associate Professor of French at Villanova University, USA. He is the author of Leaving Parnassus, and coeditor-in-chief of the scholarly journal Parade sauvage: revue d'études rimbaldiennes.

    Prize: A Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2010 ... distinguished by both its intense focus and its wide-ranging vision... Highly recommended.’ Choice '... this is an impressive book offering a pleasing mix of essays on old favorites and on unfamiliar works whose time to share the limelight has surely come.' Nineteenth-Century French Studies