چکیده:
Le ‘contemporain’ comme notion esthétique a partie liée à un travail critique qui se
propose d’en définir les particularités et les traits distinctifs. Ainsi, on peut supposer que la définition de la « littérature contemporaine française » remonte avant tout aux efforts critiques qui ont été débuté dans ce contexte depuis les années 1990. Cette définition passe souvent par les classifications conceptuelles dont la « fiction biographique », qui est une étiquette générique destinée à distinguer les écritures biographiques contemporaines en régime romanesque par rapport aux exemples plus classiques du genre. En ce sens, cette notion est le résultat d’une conceptualisation critique parallèle à la création littéraire, qui se veut sensible à la fois à la tradition littéraire et aux évolutions contemporaines. Ainsi, il paraît difficile d’ignorer l’influence prégnante de la pensée critique qui accompagne la pratique biographique, la légitime et y prête un nouveau sens dans un marché du livre de plus en plus foisonnant.
La présente étude a pour objectif de projeter une nouvelle lumière sur l’importance du travail critique dans le devenir du genre biographique à travers trois rôles que l’on lui attribue : ‘description’, ‘orientation’ et ‘classification conceptuelle’.
امر «معاصر» بهعنوان مقولهای زیباشناختی به فعالیتی انتقادی مربوط میشود که ویژگیها و خصوصیات ان را تعریف میکند. بنابراین میتوان چنین پنداشت که تعریف «ادبیات معاصر فرانسه» در وهله نخست ریشه در تلاشهای انتقادیای دارد که از دهه نود میلادی در این کشور اغاز شدهاند. این تعریف اغلب از طریق دستهبندیهای مفهومی صورت میگیرد که از ان جمله میتوان به «داستان زندگینامهای» اشاره کرد: برچسب ژانری که هدف ان تفکیک زندگینامههای معاصر نوشتهشده در قالب داستان، از نمونههای قدیمیتر این ژانر است. در این معنا، واژه مذکور نتیجه یک مفهومسازی انتقادی است که همزمان با افرینش ادبی صورت میگیرد، فرایندی که هم به سنت ادبی توجه دارد هم به تحولات معاصر. از این روی مشکل بتوان تاثیر بسزای تفکر انتقادیای را نادیده گرفت که فعالیت زندگینامهنویسی را دنبال میکند، به ان مشروعیت میبخشد و در بازار پررونق کتاب به ان معنایی نو میدهد. هدف از مطالعه حاضر نگاهی نو به اهمیت نقد در سرنوشت ژانر زندگینامهنویسی است. نقدی که در اینجا سه نقش به ان نسبت دادهایم: «توصیف»، «جهتدهی»، و «دستهبندی مفهومی».
Since the 1980s, the French cultural context testifies to a change taking shape
in the horizon of the biographical genre. After an ‟eclipse of biography”, the genre becomes the object
of a vast historical, sociological and literary reflection. If we consider this craze for biography, as a
general feature of contemporary French culture, we are faced with a temporal phenomenon which covers
without nuance ‟our time”: a passage from the ‟society of individuals” to the ‟biographical condition”,
the reason for which can be traced back to sociohistorical elements such as the ‟return of the Subject”
specific to contemporary individualism or the ‟return of the past” with all its particularities specific to
the present regime of historicity. But, if ‟contemporary” is understood to be an aesthetic label, the notion
of ‟biographical fiction” is intended to designate the distinctive features of certain biographical
productions of today in relation to a ‟generic paradigm of reference”. In this sense, it proves impossible
to close our eyes to the role that the critical authority plays in the definition of genres, and so the
formation of our conception of contemporary literature. For instance, the biographical writing is far
enough from being absent from mainstream French culture throughout the first half of the twentieth
century, a period often referred to as the period of ‟the eclipse of biography”.
Thus, it can be assumed that terms such as ecstasy or climax of biography reflect less biographical
practice than a critical consensus on this subject. What Jean-Marie Schaeffer qualifies as a ‟hierarchy
of specific attention”, which largely depends on the reading grids induced by critical projects. Therefore,
we can say that the image that exists today of the profusion of biographical creation in the French
context, without being false, depends primarily on critical work. As a result, the importance of a more
detailed study of how this work is carried out and the role it plays in the fate of the biographical genre
in the French context are represented. Indeed, what matters to us here is to highlight the critical work
that accompanies biographical creation, to which we attribute three roles in the fate of the biographical
genre and the construction of the image we have of it today. ‟description”, ‟orientation” and ‟conceptual
classification”.
To write a biography is to settle into a generic inter-discourse. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine the
state of a genre when this generic heritage is not defined. The impact of this communicational system
or this inter-discourse becomes more significant if we consider the very particular way in which
literature evolves in the French context where the new is generally defined by breaking with tradition.
The French biographical cannot be excluded from this tradition. Chronologically, the existence of the
‟tradition of rupture” required a relatively deep knowledge, detailed description and sometimes even a
theorization of biographical practice. This gave birth to a biographical reflection, which certainly had
Sadeghian S; Esfandi E— ‟Biographical Fiction”: A Contemporary Critical Conceptualization at Work | 137
an influence on the changes in biographical creation. A reflection whose origins can be traced back to the works of Sainte-Beuve. In fact, Sainte-Beuve set out to turn his ‟biographical concern” into a literary theory which requires a first effort of ‟description”, distinction and categorization. This leads to one of the first meta-discourses on the genre. It is in the same vein that we can reconsider the criticisms of Proust_ when he begins to judge with a contemptuous eye the Saint-Beuvienne ambition to seek the author characteristic in the text. Thus, Sainte-Beuve by his initiative, and Proust by his critical gesture, made the author’s biography a subject of continuous debate in French literary criticism.
Likewise, the influence of literary critical discourse on the way in which biographical writing evolves in a fictional regime can be great, especially when it is a question of an approving gesture or a ‟return” on the part of the great masters of anti-biographical doxa. Here, we limit ourselves to the role played by two of them, that is to say Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes, on the new ‟orientations” that biographical writing undergoes from the 1980s. This role is due as much to their critical contribution as their passion for some form of biographical practice.
If we can attribute a legitimizing contribution and a guiding role to the gesture of the ‟return” of the great masters of the anti-biographical doxa, we must consider such an important place for contemporary critical work. In fact, the perspective that is displayed today in front of us as the richness and variety of biographical writing in the French context is the result of a critical ‟university” work which aims to be contemporary at work. The importance of this contemporaneity becomes greater, if one considers its novelty in the French context. Prior to this period, it was the authoritative authority and journalistic criticism that dealt with classifications and conceptualizations. However, from the years 1980-90, a French university critic, concerned about showing the richness of contemporary literature, proposed to look at the work of living authors. This inclination of academic criticism for contemporary creation and this synthetic and cohesive effort on the part of the university allows the works to emerge from their isolated state and come together under a precise generic category. Indeed, such a concentration on conceptual classifications allows firstly to build a certain form of synthesis, then secondly to practice more specific analyzes on each of the texts, in the light of the norms induced by the first synthesis. Not only does a classification as ‟biographical fiction” diversifies the possibility of a critical dialogue with the legacy of the past, but also, once established, it opens up new horizons and outlines new spaces of possibilities in front of the new generation of writers, who in turn decides to join or play with it. And this is the second advantage of contemporary academic critical work at work: the ‟incitement to creation”. A third advantage can be added to conceptual classifications: the idea of production profusion against literary sluggishness, or even ‟literature in peril”, to use the title of Todorov’s book.
خلاصه ماشینی:
Si l'on considère cet engouement pour la biographie, comme un trait général de la culture française contemporaine, on se trouve face à un phénomène temporel qui recouvre sans nuance « notre temps » : un passage de la « société des individus » à la « condition biographique » (Delory-Momberger 13) dont la raison peut remonter aux éléments sociohistoriques tels que le « retour du sujet » propre à l'individualisme contemporain ou le « retour du passé » avec toutes ses particularités propres au régime présent d'historicité.
En ce sens, il s'avère impossible de fermer les yeux sur le rôle que joue l'instance critique dans la définition des genres, et donc la formation de notre conception concernant la littérature contemporaine ; d'autant plus que l'écriture biographique est assez loin de s'absenter de la culture courante française tout au long de la première moitié du XXe siècle, période dont on parle souvent comme période de « l'éclipse de la biographie ».
L'impact de ce système communicationnel ou cet interdiscours devient plus prégnant si l'on considère la manière très particulière dont la littérature évolue dans le contexte français où le nouveau (ici le contemporain) se définit généralement par rupture à l'égard de la tradition, comme le décrit Ann Jefferson : « L'histoire de la littérature française pourrait, en effet, s'écrire à partir des innombrables manifestes, pamphlets et préfaces qui s'opposent à ce qui les a précédés et annonce un nouveau départ : du Racine et Shakespeare 1 de Stendhal, aux 'Lettres du voyant' de Rimbaud, du Contre Sainte-Beuve de Proust au Manifeste du surréalisme de Breton, ou à Pour un nouveau roman de Robbe-Grillet.