Comparatisme et Societe/Comparatism and Society – serie

In the preface to La Mort de César (1736), Voltaire claimed to have written a tragedy inspired by Julius Caesar that, while not resembling Shakespeare’s play, was «entirely in the English taste». Such a claim has so far gone virtually unnoticed in scholarly circles, despite its intriguing nature. Furthermore, La Mort de César is commonly referred to as a cornerstone in the European reception of Shakespeare’s drama even though, according to Voltaire, his play was far removed from the barbaric, tasteless and therefore «untranslatable» Julius Caesar. If, for Voltaire, Shakespeare’s dramatic «taste(lessness)» was not representative of the taste of his nation, what was «English taste» for Voltaire and for his educated French contemporaries, and how did this stereotype take form? Why would Voltaire, a strong advocate of French neoclassical tragedy and a severe critic of English drama, allegedly imitate «English taste» in the first place? This book examines Voltaire’s tragedy and analyses the extent to which La Mort de César may indeed be labelled as a play «in the English taste» from the point of view of contemporary Frenchmen. But what about contemporary Englishmen? What was England’s reaction to Voltaire’s representation of her taste? Might The Roman Revenge, Aaron Hill’s retaliatory adaptation of La Mort de César, be said to convey «English taste»? The author of this book explores the elusive concept of «national taste» and reveals how it was put to the service of hidden agendas and claims regarding cultural supremacy, on both sides of the Channel.

This book considers first-person writing and the related questions of the formation of the self, the rise of the individual and the private/public debate, and places these considerations within a multicultural perspective. It compares the characteristics of European or Occidental personal writings (such as diaries, memoirs and autobiographies) with the written forms of personal, intimate and autobiographical self which have existed and continue to exist within various Asian, African or Near Eastern cultures. The book constitutes a call for a global history of personal writing.Ce livre s’intéresse, dans une perspective multiculturelle, à l’écriture de soi, et aux questions connexes de la formation même du soi, de l’émergence de l’individu ou encore du débat sur l’apparition des sphères privées et publiques. Il compare les caractéristiques de l’écrit personnel tel qu’il a eu cours en Europe ou dans les pays occidentaux (comme les journaux intimes, les mémoires, les autobiographies, entre autres) avec les formes écrites du soi personnel, intime ou autobiographique telles qu’elles ont pu exister, et existent, dans différentes cultures asiatiques, africaines ou proches-orientales. Ce livre lance également un appel pour une histoire globale des écrits personnels.

The end of the twentieth century was marked in Britain by a renewal of academic and public interest in the Great War, which remains one of the most defining historical events in British national consciousness.Focusing on questions of memory, this book examines some of the First World War narratives that were published during what has been called the late twentieth-century «war books boom». It provides a panoramic overview of these new war stories and offers close readings of texts written not only by best-selling authors such as Pat Barker and Sebastian Faulks, but also by less well-known writers who deserve greater academic attention, such as Robert Edric and Helen Dunmore. It investigates military historians’ claims about the lack of historical perspective of recent Great War writers, their perpetuation of «myths» and their inability to move beyond what has already been imagined and said. Positioned at a mid-point between literary analysis and history, this study challenges monolithic views of the war and creates a dialogue rather than a confrontation between the two disciplines. It shows how the selected narratives engage both with the writings of the trench poets and the preoccupations of their postmodern world in order to offer alternative perspectives on the war, exploring in the process complex issues regarding, among other things, the ethics of historical representation, traumatic memory, the politics of memory, and the significance of remembrance for later generations.