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Forum on Public Policy: A Journal of the Oxford Round Table, Jun 22, 2012
Introduction Georges Bernanos' first novel Under Satan's Sun (Sous le soleil de Satan) fr... more Introduction Georges Bernanos' first novel Under Satan's Sun (Sous le soleil de Satan) from 1926 contains a twenty-page fantastic episode: on his way to a neighbouring village a young priest, Donissan, meets a local horse dealer. As night falls, his nocturnal fellow traveller reveals himself to be Satan, and in the subsequent terrible combat against the Devil, God himself is also present, invisible, but definitely there. This fantastic episode is surprising, first because the popular genre of the fantastic may seem strangely out of place in a novel by Bernanos, whose serious works, extensively drawing on Catholic theology, belong to the combat literature of the Catholic Revival movement in France. (1) Secondly, it is important to underline the novelty of this direct representation of the supernatural in the Catholic novel which, as a genre, is deeply rooted in realism. The first novelists of the Catholic Revival, such as Karl-Joris Huysmans and Leon Bloy, as well as interwar Catholic novelists like Francois Mauriac and Graham Greene, shun the incarnation in concrete space and time of God or Satan. Maintaining a realistic, non-magical world, Catholic fiction dealt with God and Satan in the form of discourse as abstract, theological concepts and spiritual phenomena which can be talked or thought about by narrators or characters, but never be represented directly. Divine intervention in the universe of these novels is indirectly represented as signs, interpreted as such by the Church. The goal of this paper is to show that in spite of the above-mentioned departures from the conventions of the genre, the fantastic Satan episode in Under Satan's Sun is neither a break with the seriousness nor with the realism of the Catholic novel because Bernanos uses the traditional fantastic tale in quite unprecedented ways. In Introduction a la litterature fantastique, Tzvetan Todorov defines the traditional fantastic tale of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the following way. The beginning of the tale baffles the readers by playing on their hesitation between two options in that, "the text obliges the reader to consider the world of the characters as a world of real people and to hesitate between a natural explanation and a supernatural explanation of the described events". (2) Todorov categorises the natural, rational explanation, such as illusions, dreams, or madness, as the strange, while the supernatural explanation, i.e. events taking place in a magic world, is classified as the marvellous. At the end of the fantastic narrative the reader's hesitation comes to an end when the narrator either chooses the rational explanation (the fantastic-strange) typical of the gothic tale, or the supernatural explanation (the fantastic-marvellous) typical of the fairytale. (3) My analysis shows that the beginning of the Satan episode follows Todorov's definition, as it plays on the reader's hesitation between the strange and the marvellous. But concerning the choice of final explanation I show that Bernanos chooses neither of the two Todorovian explanations, which indeed are incompatible with the genre of the Catholic novel. The fantastic-strange explanation does not fit because it denies the existence of the supernatural while the fantastic-marvellous one does not apply because a magic fairytale universe breaks with the realism of the Catholic novel. Instead Bernanos invents a new category of the fantastic which is a synthesis of the strange and the supernatural. This new fantastic mode is simultaneously Christian and realistic, as it maintains the existence of the supernatural and locates the supernatural forces within the human mind. What is the point of writing in the fantastic mode in a solemn Catholic novel? In the secular world of the 1920s the Catholic novelist can no longer presuppose reader responsiveness to abstract theological language, and I argue that Bernanos' choice of the fantastic mode is a rhetorical strategy (4) addressed to modern readers. …
Forum on Public Policy: A Journal of the Oxford Round Table, Jun 22, 2008
... At first in the form of a monologue proclaiming that Maxence is chosen for salvation (Le voya... more ... At first in the form of a monologue proclaiming that Maxence is chosen for salvation (Le voyage du centurion, 80-81), but before long Maxence is ready to speak with God in dramatic dialogues in direct ... The novel is set in a Mexican state ruled by an anticlerical communist regime ...
Revue Romane, 2000
Si l'étrange trilogie de Varouna a fait l'objet, ces dernières années, d'une série d'analyses app... more Si l'étrange trilogie de Varouna a fait l'objet, ces dernières années, d'une série d'analyses approfondies 1 , seuls les traits oniriques et fantastiques du texte semblent retenir l'intérêt, alors que l'aspect proprement religieux n'intéresse apparemment personne. Certes, ces lectures (ainsi que des lectures plus anciennes) ont bien relevé l'influence de la religion et de la philosophie indiennes, influence confirmée par Green lui-même 2 et que corroborent entre autres le titre et le thème récurrent de la métempsycose. En effet, les trois parties de Varouna totalisent plus d'un millénaire, et tout est fait pour présenter les personnages des deux dernières parties comme des réincarnations de ceux de la première. Que faire, dans ce cas, des éléments incontestablement chrétiens dans ce même univers ? 3 Selon certains critiques 4 , d'ailleurs secondés par l'auteur lui-même 5 , il s'agit de regrettables contradictions-et qu'il aurait donc été préférable d'éviter. Le propos de la présente analyse consiste à démontrer que les contradictions ne sont qu'apparentes, que Varouna est un roman chrétien d'un bout à l'autre, de même qu'il manifeste, au niveau de la symbolique religieuse universelle, une cohérence sans faille, bien qu'assez complexe. Comme cette symbolique universelle jouera un rôle prépondérant dans tout ce qui suit, nous allons lui consacrer quelques remarques générales avant d'aborder les trois récits un par un. Un vaste réseau de symboles sous-tend toute la trilogie, véhiculant deux séries d'images isomorphes, la série du salut, dont l'image-clé est la croix, et la série du péché et du Mal, organisée autour de l'image du fil du destin et comportant par ailleurs toutes sortes de symboles puisés dans les mythologies hellénique, celte et indienne. Ainsi, comme nous essaierons de le démontrer, la chaîne de la réincarna
John Benjamins Publishing Company eBooks, Apr 9, 1992
Politik og religion i romanen: klosteret som politisk-religios topos i J.-K. Huysmans’ og Johs. J... more Politik og religion i romanen: klosteret som politisk-religios topos i J.-K. Huysmans’ og Johs. Jorgensens romaner. De politiske konflikter i Frankrig mellem katolicisme og sekularisering o. ar 1900 affodte en helt ny romangenre, den katolske roman, som blev et vaesentligt forum for diskussion og refleksion over religionens status og funktion i samfundet. Genren udsprang blandt politisk reaktionaere, nykatolske intellektuelle med forfattere som Leon Bloy, J.-K. Huysmans og Paul Bourget, som i romanform polemiserede heftigt imod den tredje republiks radikalisme og antiklerikalisme og udviklede antidemokratiske samfundsmodeller baseret pa forestillingen om en gylden middelalder, hvor kirke og krone garanterede det kristne enhedssamfund. – I Danmark var den samtidige Johannes Jorgensen, ligeledes nykatolsk antiradikal efter konverteringen i 1896, staerkt inspireret af Bloys og Huysmans’ romaner. Men der er en bemaerkelsesvaerdig forskel mellem Jorgensens og de franske nykatolske forfatteres sammentaenkning af politik og religion: Jorgensens kritik af radikalismens og liberalismens individualisme er grundet i socialistiske sympatier; han er demokrat og finder derfor efter konverteringen sit politisk-religiose stasted i den demokratiske, sociale kristendom, som pave Leo d.13’s encyklika Rerum Novarum (1891) om kirkens sociale rolle abnede for. Den sociale kristendom, som udvikledes af bla. den engelske kardinal Manning og var drivkraft i den franske Marc Sangniers bevaegelse Le Sillon, vandt dog forst litteraert indpas i den franske katolske roman i mellemkrigstiden hos f.eks. Franςois Mauriac. Men i Johannes Jorgensens katolske romaner har vi altsa et tidligt eksempel pa moderne, demokratisk og social katolsk taenkning. Denne forskel i politisk og religios taenkning vil jeg belyse ud fra Huysmans’ En route (1895) og Johs. Jorgensens Vor Frue af Danmark (1900). Begge romaner er omvendelsesfortaellinger, som traekker pa selvbiografisk stof, og i begge romaner materialiseres en ideel samfundsmodel ud fra samme litteraere og religiose topos: klosteret. Klosteret er romanernes omdrejningspunkt for forfatternes historiefortolkninger af middelalder og samtid, for deres sociale og politiske kritik og for deres visioner om relationen mellem kristendom og politik i samfundet.
Le voyageur sur la terre comporte deux niveaux de signification, etablis a l'aide des codes a... more Le voyageur sur la terre comporte deux niveaux de signification, etablis a l'aide des codes appartenant a deux genres bien distincts. La lecture selon l'un ou l'autre code focalise des elements textuels differents, activant ainsi deux perspectives interpretatives. La technique narrative du conte fantastique (un exemple rare du fantastique pur) maintient jusqu'au bout l'hesitation entre etrange (folie) et merveilleux (intervention divine). L'allegorie janseniste, mise en evidence par bon nombre de versets bibliques ainsi que par la fonction allegorique de certains personnages, synthetise l'etrange-folie et le merveilleux-divin : l'elu predestine a la grâce efficace est en effet frappe de folie. Les deux lectures, au prime abord contradictoires, se soutiennent et se completent : subordonne a l'allegorie, l'arriere-plan fantastique sert a exclure une interpretation calviniste de la predestination
Forum on Public Policy: A Journal of the Oxford Round Table, Jun 22, 2012
Introduction Georges Bernanos' first novel Under Satan's Sun (Sous le soleil de Satan) fr... more Introduction Georges Bernanos' first novel Under Satan's Sun (Sous le soleil de Satan) from 1926 contains a twenty-page fantastic episode: on his way to a neighbouring village a young priest, Donissan, meets a local horse dealer. As night falls, his nocturnal fellow traveller reveals himself to be Satan, and in the subsequent terrible combat against the Devil, God himself is also present, invisible, but definitely there. This fantastic episode is surprising, first because the popular genre of the fantastic may seem strangely out of place in a novel by Bernanos, whose serious works, extensively drawing on Catholic theology, belong to the combat literature of the Catholic Revival movement in France. (1) Secondly, it is important to underline the novelty of this direct representation of the supernatural in the Catholic novel which, as a genre, is deeply rooted in realism. The first novelists of the Catholic Revival, such as Karl-Joris Huysmans and Leon Bloy, as well as interwar Catholic novelists like Francois Mauriac and Graham Greene, shun the incarnation in concrete space and time of God or Satan. Maintaining a realistic, non-magical world, Catholic fiction dealt with God and Satan in the form of discourse as abstract, theological concepts and spiritual phenomena which can be talked or thought about by narrators or characters, but never be represented directly. Divine intervention in the universe of these novels is indirectly represented as signs, interpreted as such by the Church. The goal of this paper is to show that in spite of the above-mentioned departures from the conventions of the genre, the fantastic Satan episode in Under Satan's Sun is neither a break with the seriousness nor with the realism of the Catholic novel because Bernanos uses the traditional fantastic tale in quite unprecedented ways. In Introduction a la litterature fantastique, Tzvetan Todorov defines the traditional fantastic tale of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the following way. The beginning of the tale baffles the readers by playing on their hesitation between two options in that, "the text obliges the reader to consider the world of the characters as a world of real people and to hesitate between a natural explanation and a supernatural explanation of the described events". (2) Todorov categorises the natural, rational explanation, such as illusions, dreams, or madness, as the strange, while the supernatural explanation, i.e. events taking place in a magic world, is classified as the marvellous. At the end of the fantastic narrative the reader's hesitation comes to an end when the narrator either chooses the rational explanation (the fantastic-strange) typical of the gothic tale, or the supernatural explanation (the fantastic-marvellous) typical of the fairytale. (3) My analysis shows that the beginning of the Satan episode follows Todorov's definition, as it plays on the reader's hesitation between the strange and the marvellous. But concerning the choice of final explanation I show that Bernanos chooses neither of the two Todorovian explanations, which indeed are incompatible with the genre of the Catholic novel. The fantastic-strange explanation does not fit because it denies the existence of the supernatural while the fantastic-marvellous one does not apply because a magic fairytale universe breaks with the realism of the Catholic novel. Instead Bernanos invents a new category of the fantastic which is a synthesis of the strange and the supernatural. This new fantastic mode is simultaneously Christian and realistic, as it maintains the existence of the supernatural and locates the supernatural forces within the human mind. What is the point of writing in the fantastic mode in a solemn Catholic novel? In the secular world of the 1920s the Catholic novelist can no longer presuppose reader responsiveness to abstract theological language, and I argue that Bernanos' choice of the fantastic mode is a rhetorical strategy (4) addressed to modern readers. …
Forum on Public Policy: A Journal of the Oxford Round Table, Jun 22, 2008
... At first in the form of a monologue proclaiming that Maxence is chosen for salvation (Le voya... more ... At first in the form of a monologue proclaiming that Maxence is chosen for salvation (Le voyage du centurion, 80-81), but before long Maxence is ready to speak with God in dramatic dialogues in direct ... The novel is set in a Mexican state ruled by an anticlerical communist regime ...
Revue Romane, 2000
Si l'étrange trilogie de Varouna a fait l'objet, ces dernières années, d'une série d'analyses app... more Si l'étrange trilogie de Varouna a fait l'objet, ces dernières années, d'une série d'analyses approfondies 1 , seuls les traits oniriques et fantastiques du texte semblent retenir l'intérêt, alors que l'aspect proprement religieux n'intéresse apparemment personne. Certes, ces lectures (ainsi que des lectures plus anciennes) ont bien relevé l'influence de la religion et de la philosophie indiennes, influence confirmée par Green lui-même 2 et que corroborent entre autres le titre et le thème récurrent de la métempsycose. En effet, les trois parties de Varouna totalisent plus d'un millénaire, et tout est fait pour présenter les personnages des deux dernières parties comme des réincarnations de ceux de la première. Que faire, dans ce cas, des éléments incontestablement chrétiens dans ce même univers ? 3 Selon certains critiques 4 , d'ailleurs secondés par l'auteur lui-même 5 , il s'agit de regrettables contradictions-et qu'il aurait donc été préférable d'éviter. Le propos de la présente analyse consiste à démontrer que les contradictions ne sont qu'apparentes, que Varouna est un roman chrétien d'un bout à l'autre, de même qu'il manifeste, au niveau de la symbolique religieuse universelle, une cohérence sans faille, bien qu'assez complexe. Comme cette symbolique universelle jouera un rôle prépondérant dans tout ce qui suit, nous allons lui consacrer quelques remarques générales avant d'aborder les trois récits un par un. Un vaste réseau de symboles sous-tend toute la trilogie, véhiculant deux séries d'images isomorphes, la série du salut, dont l'image-clé est la croix, et la série du péché et du Mal, organisée autour de l'image du fil du destin et comportant par ailleurs toutes sortes de symboles puisés dans les mythologies hellénique, celte et indienne. Ainsi, comme nous essaierons de le démontrer, la chaîne de la réincarna
John Benjamins Publishing Company eBooks, Apr 9, 1992
Politik og religion i romanen: klosteret som politisk-religios topos i J.-K. Huysmans’ og Johs. J... more Politik og religion i romanen: klosteret som politisk-religios topos i J.-K. Huysmans’ og Johs. Jorgensens romaner. De politiske konflikter i Frankrig mellem katolicisme og sekularisering o. ar 1900 affodte en helt ny romangenre, den katolske roman, som blev et vaesentligt forum for diskussion og refleksion over religionens status og funktion i samfundet. Genren udsprang blandt politisk reaktionaere, nykatolske intellektuelle med forfattere som Leon Bloy, J.-K. Huysmans og Paul Bourget, som i romanform polemiserede heftigt imod den tredje republiks radikalisme og antiklerikalisme og udviklede antidemokratiske samfundsmodeller baseret pa forestillingen om en gylden middelalder, hvor kirke og krone garanterede det kristne enhedssamfund. – I Danmark var den samtidige Johannes Jorgensen, ligeledes nykatolsk antiradikal efter konverteringen i 1896, staerkt inspireret af Bloys og Huysmans’ romaner. Men der er en bemaerkelsesvaerdig forskel mellem Jorgensens og de franske nykatolske forfatteres sammentaenkning af politik og religion: Jorgensens kritik af radikalismens og liberalismens individualisme er grundet i socialistiske sympatier; han er demokrat og finder derfor efter konverteringen sit politisk-religiose stasted i den demokratiske, sociale kristendom, som pave Leo d.13’s encyklika Rerum Novarum (1891) om kirkens sociale rolle abnede for. Den sociale kristendom, som udvikledes af bla. den engelske kardinal Manning og var drivkraft i den franske Marc Sangniers bevaegelse Le Sillon, vandt dog forst litteraert indpas i den franske katolske roman i mellemkrigstiden hos f.eks. Franςois Mauriac. Men i Johannes Jorgensens katolske romaner har vi altsa et tidligt eksempel pa moderne, demokratisk og social katolsk taenkning. Denne forskel i politisk og religios taenkning vil jeg belyse ud fra Huysmans’ En route (1895) og Johs. Jorgensens Vor Frue af Danmark (1900). Begge romaner er omvendelsesfortaellinger, som traekker pa selvbiografisk stof, og i begge romaner materialiseres en ideel samfundsmodel ud fra samme litteraere og religiose topos: klosteret. Klosteret er romanernes omdrejningspunkt for forfatternes historiefortolkninger af middelalder og samtid, for deres sociale og politiske kritik og for deres visioner om relationen mellem kristendom og politik i samfundet.
Le voyageur sur la terre comporte deux niveaux de signification, etablis a l'aide des codes a... more Le voyageur sur la terre comporte deux niveaux de signification, etablis a l'aide des codes appartenant a deux genres bien distincts. La lecture selon l'un ou l'autre code focalise des elements textuels differents, activant ainsi deux perspectives interpretatives. La technique narrative du conte fantastique (un exemple rare du fantastique pur) maintient jusqu'au bout l'hesitation entre etrange (folie) et merveilleux (intervention divine). L'allegorie janseniste, mise en evidence par bon nombre de versets bibliques ainsi que par la fonction allegorique de certains personnages, synthetise l'etrange-folie et le merveilleux-divin : l'elu predestine a la grâce efficace est en effet frappe de folie. Les deux lectures, au prime abord contradictoires, se soutiennent et se completent : subordonne a l'allegorie, l'arriere-plan fantastique sert a exclure une interpretation calviniste de la predestination