Quêtes littéraires, 2012, No 2: Aux confins de l'absence

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    Absence de décision. Examen de quelques récits brefs des XIIe et XIIIe siècles
    (Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, Wydawnictwo Werset, 2012) Gęsicka, Anna
    The absence of decision-making is one of the aspects of the issues of will and choices in short French court narratives of the XII and XIII centuries. The paper focuses on two executions that present this motif. Protagonists facing numerous options – or, on the contrary, being faced with dramatic turning points in the plot that restrict their choices – feel a kind of decision deadlock. In the analysed texts, the absence of decision – short or long term – is shown in the narratives with ‘ne set que faire’ formula (“does not know what to do”) and a reference to advice needed by the indecisive protagonist.
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    Décomposition et recomposition : présence et absence des corps noyés dans Lélia (1833) de George Sand et L’Éducation sentimentale (1845) de Gustave Flaubert
    (Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, Wydawnictwo Werset, 2012) Carrico, Abbey
    In Romantic literature, water often serves as a symbol of death and of the dissolution of the individual, representing a passage from presence to absence. In order to show this transformation, writers frequently rely on scenes of drowning. However, in these depictions drowning does not always lead to an absence, but rather, it reveals a physical presence: that of the cadavers themselves. Through a detailed analysis of two romantic texts whose treatment of drowning sheds light on the relationship between absence and presence, Lélia (1833) by George Sand and L’Éducation sentimentale (1845) by Gustave Flaubert, this study engages the following questions on thematic and structural levels: Does drowning undeniably bring about an annihilation of the individual? Are the boundaries between absence and presence, disappearing and (re)appearing, decomposition and (re)composition, clearly defined? Or is there another interpretation? One that is specific to textual portrayals of immersion? From an eco-critical perspective, it is clear that water represents an ideal space to portray the tension between life and death. As presented by Sand and Flaubert, drowned bodies inspire images of life rather than death and therefore cause the reader to question these boundaries on an imaginative and symbolic level.
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    Des œuvres décentes qui font rougir : la métaphore véhiculant la sexualité (apparemment) absente dans quelques romans zoliens
    (Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, Wydawnictwo Werset, 2012) Kaczmarek, Anna
    Sex and sexuality are two obsessions of the 19th century. As the literature of this time, influenced by the Victorian hypocritical morality, rejects these subjects, considered as “immoral”, the relation of any form of sexual act is consequently absent in the works of 19th century writers, even of those who consider themselves as realists. However, the work of a writer like Emile Zola cannot overlook this problem, so important for naturalism. For Zola, sex is a vital activity and should be shown in works of art. Therefore, to give his writings the appearance of decency, Zola uses metaphors that “sexualise” some elements of the world of his novels, like plants, animals, things, places and everyday occupations. This allows him to show, in an imaginary way, the aspects of life that cannot be displayed openly and directly. Thank to his poetic talent these images constitute a valuable part of his Rougon-Macquart series.
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    « Les marques » de l’absence dans le théâtre de Maurice Maeterlinck
    (Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, Wydawnictwo Werset, 2012) Enache, Eugenia
    Our approach is focused on the issue of the “markers” of absence as well as on the expression and materialization of that absence in a corpus of works formed of the following plays: L’Intruse, Les Aveugles, Intérieur by Maurice Maeterlinck. The acceptions the concept of “absence” may receive throughout our analysis are parts of the phenomenon of progressive alienation seen, for instance, as separation (stressing the idea of distance and departure), or as solitude, then omission (in the sense of forgetting), and culminating with the inability of perception that anticipates isolation, physical imprisonment and announces death (designated through a privative prefix) as an absence that is always present and obscurity. We attempt to reveal the “markers” of absence on the level of certain constituents of the play: the character, formed of a discursive feature, infinitely simple and repetitive, much more diminished and developing without individuality, like a silent, mysterious ghost; and the action where it is rather inaction that represents our primary direction of research. As a secondary direction, we consider the markers of absence in a language that, in the case of Maeterlinck, is remarkably pure and lacks any syntactic or lexical complication, from lexical structures (the reassessment of short expressions makes the utterances seem captivatingly strange, revealing, beyond words, unutterable, unspeakable) and the grammar, especially the semantics of its forms – the 3rd person pronouns, a form we may consider as deprived of referential content, the indefinite pronouns which indicate absence –, the semantics of punctuation, especially that of the suspension points.
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    Le vide dans le théâtre camusien
    (Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, Wydawnictwo Werset, 2012) Jakubczuk, Renata
    This article is an analysis of two plays by a great French literature writer, Albert Camus: Caligula (1945) and Le Malentendu (The Misunderstanding, sometimes published as Cross Purpose, 1944). After a careful presentation of the plots of the play, we are proposing a definition of the following terms: the absence and the void. Afterwards, we examine the nature of the absences presented, and we offer a classification of such absences. We establish four categories of the void: philosophical, spiritual, physical, and the absence of the closest kin. A re-reading of the dramaturgical texts serves to appreciate the manner in which these texts are presented to the reader/spectator and to prove that the Camusian void is in a strict relation with an existential pain associated with the absence of God in people’s life.