Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/tfr.2023.a911375
Adrienne Angelo
Reviewed by: Un sang d’encre: du corps en littérature contemporaine by Nora Cottille-Foley Adrienne Angelo Cottille-Foley, Nora. Un sang d’encre: du corps en littérature contemporaine. L’Harmattan, 2022. ISBN 978-2-14-025338-6. Pp. 224. Taking as its premise that a shared “sentiment d’angoisse existentielle” (7) circulates in the writings of the contemporary women writers included in this study, this work examines textual manifestations of unease which surface in response to differing degrees of social inequality and hostility in their characters’ respective environments. To this end, Cottille-Foley reads representations of corporeality in these authors’ works via metamorphosis, the monstrous, the mythical, and the uncanny. The first chapter considers different forms of monstrosity throughout Marie NDiaye’s novels (from En famille to La vengeance m’appartient) as metaphors for power dynamics which shape identity and interpersonal relationships. Turning to Maryse Condé’s novel Célanire cou-coupé, the author traces the autobiographical elements and polyphonic complexities of this text and evokes Glissant’s concept of opacity-as-resistance to buttress her reading of Condé’s work. Cottille-Foley explains how Maylis de Kerangal’s Réparer les vivants offers a “redéfinition en spirale” (92) of women’s agency by evoking and seemingly restaging ancient myths and paternalistic medical practices (especially Charcot’s treatment of “hysteric” patients in nineteenth-century France). In the chapter dedicated to Linda Lê’s Trois parques, the author presents the ways in which the polyvalent aspects of food, exile, and familial estrangement are inscribed on the characters’ bodies and are tied to the body of writing (96). The image of the disarticulated body carries over to the next chapter on Marie Nimier in which the author touches upon images of fragmented bodies in Sirène, La caresse, and La reine du silence. Cotille-Foley posits that Nimier projects herself into the space of the text which affords her a safe and distanced space from where she attempts to reassemble “les fragments de l’image du père” (114). The author contends that Marie Darrieussecq’s first novel Truismes, wherein subversion is inscribed on the woman’s body which slowly morphs into that of a pig’s, denounces gender-based violence, and grants autonomous insight through the changing body. The last chapter analyzes images of the narrator’s pregnant and post-abortion body and metaphors of contamination in Annie Ernaux’s first work, Les armoires vides, to explain the ultimate upending of social class dichotomies. Finally, Cottille-Foley includes her 1996 interview with Ernaux which complements her reading of this novel. The author acknowledges that this study presents “d’étranges correspondances” (207) between these established women writers, each of whom is known for her respective thematic concerns, narrative perspective(s), and writing style. By locating the body as a site of alterity and subver
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/tfr.2023.a911384
Celina Vargas
Reviewed by: Matisse in the 1930s by Affron, Matthew, Cécile Debray and Claudine Grammont Celina Vargas Affron, Matthew, Cécile Debray, Claudine Grammont, et al. Matisse in the 1930s. Yale UP, 2022. ISBN 978-0-87633-2993. Pp. 256. The Philadelphia Art Museum, collaborating with other institutions and academics has put together a well-articulated compendium of works and essays exploring the state of Henri Matisse’s career and personal life to accompany their exhibition. In the years preceding the 1930s, the reader meets a Matisse in crisis. Worries of artistic stagnation, of maintaining relevance, and of establishing a legacy weighed on his artistic process, and retrospective showings of his work signaled the public’s perception that the artist had reached the zenith of his career. It is the piece commissioned by and completed for the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Philadelphia, The Dance, that is often referred to as the watershed moment of a dynamic change in his process and compositions. Using photography to document his changes and cut-out pieces of paper to modify large areas of color helped him to push away from Fauvism and his odalisques into the greater expanses of Modernism. Although many think of Matisse as a standalone name, it is the importance of collaboration especially in The Dance that is reflected in this literature. Without the help of a housepainter named Goyo, and Matisse’s wife’s caretaker and Matisse’s model, Lydia Delectorskaya, The Dance would not have been possible as they both worked directly on the piece. Even beyond the hands-on work of those supporting Matisse in material production, others played important parts in this revitalization of his work. Christian Zervos, editor-in-chief of Cahiers d’art served as an advocate of Matisse and other artists such as Pablo Picasso by dispersing their imagery to the public. Names such as Zervos, Picasso, and Delectorskaya are inextricably tied to Matisse and continually evoked. The effect is that of a palimpsest of situations familiar and reiterative, copying that of Matisse’s developed painting style of erasing areas with turpentine and painting over them to achieve the desired outcome. Interspersed are the vibrant painted canvases, the carefully planned linework, and photographs by and of Matisse. Letters from Matisse to members of his family inform much of the accounts of the artist and give glimpses into the personality of an artist often seen sternly gazing at the camera lens. It has an overall humanizing effect and the problematization of Matisse’s work is relegated to a handful of essays as the compilation serves to celebrate the artist’s revitalization, rather than explore a success supported by an orientalist gaze. His travels to Tahiti and the United States are lauded as a turning point in his portrayal of women of the African diaspora, though at a time when his work saw a movement from easel picture to an increase in architectural painting. [End Page 216] Rather than a pi
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/tfr.2023.a911346
Nacer Khelouz
Reviewed by: Zéro gloire par Aurélien Guénard Nacer Khelouz Guénard, Aurélien. Zéro gloire. Flammarion, 2022. ISBN 978-2-0802-9061-8. Pp. 128. Pierre Guénard, par ailleurs leader du groupe de rock Radio Elvis, nous propose un récit à la première personne composé de 19 chapitres courts menés tambour battant, et dont la vitalité de la trame narrative n’a d’égale que cette promesse que se fait tout adolescent de mordre la vie à pleines dents. Or, cela commence paradoxalement avec la mort au quotidien. Celle des autres. En effet, Aurélien Moreau dit Harry, du fait de sa ressemblance avec l’illustre Harry Potter, cumule deux boulots alimentaires: serveur chez MacDonald la nuit et employé des pompes funèbres le jour. Situation inédite qui le poussera à oser ce grinçant jeu de mots: “Selon l’uniforme que je porte, je vends des burgers ou je viens chercher un corps, alors je me dis qu’on devrait inventer le Big Macchabée juste pour moi” (9). Mais tout cela est naturellement provisoire car “Auré” est persuadé qu’il a un destin national et “qu’un jour [je] serai célèbre” (81). Mais c’est qu’il se rêve musicien et seuls les applaudissements qui montent de la foule en transe pourront illuminer sa vie: “Je regarde des vidéos des Doors et ce n’est pas Jim Morrison qui chante, c’est moi” (33). En prévision de cet envol vers une improbable gloire, lui l’exilé de Cravoux “à une heure de Poitiers”, petite bourgade d’une “centaine de maisons blotties autour de l’église et du cimetière” (11), doit faire quelque chose du rien dont est remplie son existence. Avec une bande d’amis, il va alors jouer à repousser les limites du désir de vivre, jusqu’à cette nausée qui côtoie les rivages du suicide. Alcool, drogue et sexe constitueront son butin de guerre: “D’une seule voix, l’assemblée a crié Bois ! Bois ! Bois ! et je crois que j’avais envie de me noyer” (98). Pierre Guénard dresse par ailleurs un tableau peu reluisant du monde de la restauration rapide. Aurélien y décrit des conditions de travail aliénantes: “Et c’est parti pour le grand ballet des bips. Bip des friteuses, bip des plaques de cuisson, bip pour se laver les mains, bip de la carte bleue, bip pour pointer, bip pour dépointer. Même la pendule dessine des bips avec ses petits points rouges” (20). Zéro Gloire à tout cela? Aurélien Moreau en a une tout autre idée: “C’est le genre de choses qu’on aurait fait [...] pour la beauté du geste et avoir des trucs à raconter quand on sera célèbres” (56). Voilà donc que cette béance est perçue comme un trop-plein ou tremplin. Montant à Paris à l’orée de ces 18 ans, “Harry” se prépare à être enfin cet “Aurélien” (c’est le titre du dernier chapitre) qu’il n’a jamais pu être: “Ça résonne longtemps dans ma tête, Aurélien” (120). Ce roman, à l’écriture de l’urgence, presque télégraphique, a pour lui une oralité débridée qui fait l’économie de l’agencement syntaxique, rappelant curieusement l’opoponax de Wittig ou plus près de nous le gone du chaâba de Begag pour sa truculenc
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/tfr.2023.a911371
Patricia Geesey
Reviewed by: Intermediality in French-Language Comics and Graphic Novels ed. by Jan Baetens, Hugo Frey and Fabrice Leroy Patricia Geesey Baetens, Jan, Hugo Frey, and Fabrice Leroy, eds. Intermediality in French-Language Comics and Graphic Novels. UP of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2022. ISBN 978-1-946160-89-8. Pp. xxix + 299. In their introduction to this fine collection of thirteen individual chapters (grouped into five sections that address different mediums), the editors highlight the complementarity of comic studies to the field of intermediality studies. The introduction helpfully addresses theories and applications of intermediality, or the “use of different signs or types of signs within a single medium” (xi), presented in previous critical works. The essays of this well-illustrated volume explore “the relations or interconnections between the modalities of expression and representation used in bande dessinée and that of other media” (xvii). The thirteen chapters provide close readings of other media or other forms of representation including reportage, film, literature, video games, memory studies, music, painting, and photography appearing in French-language comics and graphic novels. The editors note that intermediality is already a recognized aspect of comic art; furthermore, an intermediality-based approach to the study of comics allows for a useful balance between theoretical speculation and case-study-based close reading (xii). The essays in the collection strike such a balance in analyzing intermediality in bande dessinée in new and thoughtful ways, looking at forms of hybridity, as well as narrative, enunciative, and structural innovations that reference other mediums. In “Part One: Comics and Cinema,” three essays present detailed analyses of comic art and cinematic intermediality. The chapter on Greg Shaw’s Travelling Square District by Livio Belloï, suggests that Shaw’s unique publication “could be labeled as a ‘para-cinematic’ work, to the extent that this album applies its mechanics and reveals its actual stakes only in relation to or in proximity with cinema” (10). Tamara Tasevska’s essay “Godard’s Contra-Bande: Early Comic Heroes in Pierrot le fou and Le livre d’image,” posits Godard’s referencing of Les Pieds Nickelés as “an explicitly historical, political, and ethical critique that comments on the norms of production, distribution, and circulation of images in artistic practices in the modern period” (37). The six chapters contained in “Part Two: Comics, Photography, and the Photonovel,” and “Part Three: Comics, Reportage, and Memory,” present valuable studies of documentary and photography, including Michelle Bumatay’s “BD Reportage or Exotic Travel Journal? L’Afrique de papa and the Intermedial Gaze;” Charlotte F. Werbe’s “Remediating the Documentary: Photography and Drawn Images in Mickey au camp de Gurs;” and Renée Altergott’s “Mediated Martyrdom in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.” Parts Four and Five of the collection cove
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/tfr.2023.a911365
Khadija Khalifé
Reviewed by: Pascal et la proposition chrétienne par Pierre Manent Khadija Khalifé Manent, Pierre. Pascal et la proposition chrétienne. Grasset, 2022. ISBN 978-2-246-83236-2. Pp. 432. Comment le christianisme qui, pendant des siècles, s’étendait et se consolidait sur toute l’Europe, en est-il venu à avoir peu de poids politique et idéologique sur ce même continent aujourd’hui? Dans Pascal et la proposition chrétienne, Pierre Manent se propose de passer en revue “les développements qui ont conduit à cette étrange situation d’un continent devenu étranger” (8), où règne non plus “la séparation du politique et du religieux” mais la supériorité de la loi de l’État à la religion—bien qu’il n’y ait aucune preuve de “supériorité de valeur ou de dignité” (11-12). Pour cela, l’auteur examine l’évolution de l’ensemble “des dogmes ou mystères chrétiens” à partir de “la proposition chrétienne” telle qu’avancée par Blaise Pascal (19), tout en étendant ses réflexions à d’autres mouvements de pensée. Pour Pascal, le dérèglement a commencé par la déformation, chez les pères jésuites, des valeurs liées à la foi chrétienne à cause de leur “doctrine des opinions probables” (37), qui se traduit par “un excès d’indulgence ou une complaisance abusive” face aux vices humains (45) afin de maintenir leur pouvoir sur les fidèles. Cette démarche de compromission chez les jésuites—qui pourrait choquer le sens moral—est similaire à celle des campagnes électorales, nous rappelle l’auteur (55). Ce mépris initial pour la vraie foi chrétienne sera affermi par les découvertes de la science moderne, et les deux phénomènes conduisent progressivement à la séparation de l’homme de Dieu et, par conséquent, à son malheur et à l’injustice humaine. Bien entendu, Pascal finit par renvoyer le malheur de l’homme au péché originel et prône le renouement avec le christianisme (c’est la conclusion de l’essai). Or, l’intérêt de l’ouvrage réside surtout dans l’enchaînement des idées et la justification de la proposition pascalienne dans une démarche philosophique solide et logique. Manent réexamine l’argumentaire du philosophe concernant des concepts importants tels que la dualité entre la justice et la force, l’ordre politique, la condition humaine, la concupiscence, le fameux “pari” pascalien, “l’infini de grandeur et l’infini de petitesse”, le droit, le manque de justice universelle, etc., et cela lui donne l’occasion de comparer et mettre en contraste les arguments de notre intellectuel du XVIIe siècle avec d’autres arguments théologiques ou philosophiques, notamment ceux de Descartes, Anselme, Montaigne et Saint Thomas—d’où la richesse de la réflexion qui dépasse la philosophie pascalienne. À titre d’exemple, en étudiant le “phénomène humain”, l’essai fait ressortir les différentes nuances du “moi” chez Montaigne, Rousseau, Hobbes et Pascal, et les rapports du “moi” avec les autorités sociales et politiques, dans le but d’exposer la perspective pascalienne concernant la soumission et la serv
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/tfr.2023.a911349
Annie Bandy
Reviewed by: Passage du cyclone par Jennifer Lesieur Annie Bandy Lesieur, Jennifer. Passage du cyclone. Stock, 2022. ISBN 978-2-234-09131-3. Pp 247. Le cyclone est non seulement un phénomène météorologique fréquent en Polynésie, mais dans cet ouvrage c’est aussi la métaphore d’une transformation personnelle de l’autrice à l’aube de ses quatorze ans. Le passage de l’enfance à l’adolescence, de l’innocence à une maturité déroutante est en effet le sujet du roman d’apprentissage de Jennifer Lesieur, dont le catalyseur est Tahiti. C’est là où la jeune ado, expat avec ses parents, passe des années riches de rencontres et de découvertes où les sensations sont si fortes qu’elles changent sa perception du monde autour d’elle. Cette éducation sensorielle aiguise sa curiosité, suscite chez elle des questionnements et ouvre des perspectives inconnues qui sont finement décrites par l’autrice tout en évitant l’écueil d’un exotisme de pacotille. Les filles de son âge avec qui elle parle et joue à l’école, dansent l’otea et l’aparima comme des femmes, si bien qu’elle, qui n’est pas une “Demie”, mais une “métro” (22) se met à envier l’origine métissée, chinoise, australienne, cambodgienne de ses copines. Son amie Tumata, abandonnée par ses parents, lui confie ses souvenirs de l’année heureuse passée chez ses grands-parents dans leur village reculé, et la petite métro constate avec lucidité la valeur d’un autre mode de vie, puisque chez eux, même s’il “n’y avait rien, elle avait tout” (106). Le texte, par la voix de la narratrice, offre un accès sans filtre sur ses émotions, comme si on absorbait directement à travers elle les visions surprenantes de la faune: “mes yeux se remplirent d’eau” (127), de la flore: le parfum capiteux des fleurs de tiaré “s’enroulait autour de mon cou” (86), ou encore la musique des “ori”, danses tahitiennes, qui dès l’âge de 6 ou 7 ans l’avaient chamboulée: “Je ne m’en étais jamais remise” (164). Ces bouleversements intimes, à l’opposé des commentaires à l’emporte-pièce des touristes, l’interrogent sur la légitimité des jugements portés sur les personnes et les coutumes, “d’où venait ce mépris?” (176). Plus une enfant, pas encore adulte, à peine ado, elle mûrit, compare, se pose des questions, réalise qu’autour d’elle les contradictions abondent. La plongée sous-marine dans le sillage d’une baleine et de son baleineau la transporte dans un monde féerique, mais la réunion de parents en colère discutant les maltraitances subies par Tumata chez son oncle, la ramène brutalement sur terre et lui donne la nausée (216): le paradis a-t-il deux côtés? Par mille détails, ce contact extraordinaire avec une nature, un peuple et une culture qui la touchent profondément, intervient à un moment propice à la transformation de son caractère et la construction de sa personnalité. Instinctivement, pour désigner sa maison, elle dira maintenant, “mon fenua” (24) en rentrant chez elle après l’école. Ce sentiment très fort d’appartenance—“Tahiti se jette da
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/tfr.2023.a911343
Ann Williams
Reviewed by: Cher connard by Virginie Despentes Ann Williams Despentes, Virginie. Cher connard. Grasset, 2022. ISBN 978-2-246-82651-4. Pp. 352. In today’s world we can’t survive without sorting through information. What is true? What is significant? From the start, this novel gives readers ample opportunity to hone critical skills as Virginie Despentes deploys her talents as a writer and critic of contemporary society. Social media and email host the attempts at communication that constitute this book. It begins with an Instagram post where Oscar, one of the two principal narrators, comments on how poorly a certain famous actress has aged. This elicits an acrimonious email response from the latter, Rebecca, the second main narrator. Her salutation “Cher connard” (8) begins their personal exchange. We learn that Oscar, forty-three, and Rebecca, now fifty-ish, grew up in the same grim part of Nancy and he’s reaching out to her. Oscar is a novelist of some renown, but he feels desperately alone. He’s struggling with addictions and recovery and is also facing public criticism for sexual harassment. Little by little, Rebecca begrudgingly warms to this self-centered man and reveals her own addictions to heroin and to public acclaim. The limited acting opportunities she now faces are a source of anguish and she, too, feels she has nowhere to turn. The Covid-19 lockdowns make this virtual interaction even more significant, and Oscar and Rebecca find consolation in their exchange. The third narrator, whose feminist blog keeps this work from being a purely epistolary novel, is Zoé Katana who angrily tells her side of the harassment story and presents her views on how the world needs to change. She gives voice to important social problems and inequities, but Despentes dedicates fewer pages of the novel to Zoé’s fight than she does to Oscar and Rebecca. We learn from email exchanges that Zoé appears in real life in Rebecca’s world and then again in Oscar’s, but these encounters feel somewhat like devices to move the story along. One might see Zoé’s immutable character as little more than a foil that highlights the personal growth of the other two. For them, compassion replaces animosity and by the end of the novel it’s clear that they are friends and will replace their virtual relationship by meeting in real life. From a literary perspective, the lack of differentiation between the narrators’ voices might throw off a reader who wants to engage with distinct characters rather than with an author. Incantatory phrases without punctuation express emotion, and while this flow signals the depth of feelings, it often makes all three characters sound alike. Is this a stylistic weakness or a strategy to show how similar all of us are despite what we often see as fundamental dif ferences? Oscar and Rebecca both come to understand that they cannot be defined by just one aspect of who they are. When Oscar says, referring to his role as harasser, “Je suis ça, aussi” (277
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/tfr.2023.a911385
James P. Gilroy
Reviewed by: From Memling to Rubens: The Golden Age of Flanders by Katharina Van Cauteren et al James P. Gilroy Van Cauteren, Katharina, et al. From Memling to Rubens: The Golden Age of Flanders. Hannibal, 2021. ISBN 978 94 6388 744 1. Pp. 432. This richly illustrated book is the catalogue of an exhibit held at the Denver Art Museum, from October 2022 to January 2023, titled “Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks.” Over a hundred paintings created in the French and Flemish-speaking Southern Netherlands from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries were displayed and are reproduced in the catalogue. The volume is divided into two parts. The first half is an insightful, somewhat irreverent, narrative by Katharina Van Cauteren from the Phoebus Foundation in Antwerp, whose collection provided most of the paintings on display. With works of art from the exhibit as examples, she traces the social and religious evolution of the cities of Flanders and Brabant from the late Middle Ages through the Renaissance to the Baroque era. The Southern Netherlands were a part of the French sphere of influence since they were ruled for over a century by the Dukes of Burgundy, cousins of the Kings of France. The Dukes sought to recreate the Carolingian “middle empire” of Lothair (22). Tournai-born painter Rogier Van der Wyden, “the court painter of the dukes of Burgundy in Brussels” influenced several later artists, like the Master of the Prado Adoration (232) and Hugo Van der Goes by his “emotionally charged” inspiration (238). A later artist, Joos Van Cleve, was engaged by King Francis Ist to do a series of portraits of the French royal family (282). Medieval works were of a highly religious import. The Church inspired a fear of hell among the people, who were urged to follow a righteous path in this life to be deemed worthy of entrance into heaven after death. Painters were inspired by the teachings of Saint Francis of Assisi who preached a more human image of God. The maternal love of Mary for her Son and the sufferings of Jesus on the Cross became more intensely felt by artists and their public. The “Modern Devotion” that developed in Flanders in the fifteenth century beheld manifestations of the divine presence in every aspect of nature and humanity. A growing middle class in commercial centers like Antwerp at first sought to emulate but later came to challenge the nobility and clergy who had dominated society up until then. There was a growing secularization as the desire for worldly affluence and prestige became a stronger motivation than fears about the afterlife. The second half of the catalogue is devoted to analyses of the individual works in the exhibit by six art experts. They trace noteworthy artistic trends. Just as Flemish painters had influenced Italian artists in the fifteenth century by their depiction of minute details and the technique of oil on canvas, later Northern masters like Rubens traveled to Italy and came
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/tfr.2023.a911360
Peter A. Machonis
Reviewed by: La presse française historique: histoire d’un genre et histoire de la langue by Mairi McLaughlin Peter A. Machonis McLaughlin, Mairi. La presse française historique: histoire d’un genre et histoire de la langue. Garnier, 2021. ISBN 978-2-406-10356-1. Pp. 407. This first systematic study of the language of the early French press shows how historical periodicals can shed light on our understanding of language changes during the 17th and 18th centuries. This 500,000-word manually digitized corpus was created using samples of a variety of successful periodicals from 1631 to 1789: the official and impersonal Gazette de France, the scientific Journal des sçavants, the lighter and more intimate Mercure galant, the first French-language daily newspaper Journal de Paris, and the international Gazette d’Amsterdam. The first part examines usage of first and second person pronouns, reported discourse (direct, indirect, free indirect), and passive voice in historical periodicals. The author furthers her quantitative and qualitative comparison by examining today’s French press. Although certain features, such as the masthead, have long been characteristic of periodicals, others, such as using headlines and putting the most important information first, are completely absent in all of the 17th and 18th century journals examined. While dispatches were chronologically ordered in the historic press, today they are sorted according to interest. McLaughlin claims, “Aucun des périodiques […] de 1631 jusqu’à la Révolution […] ne se sert de la première page pour capter le lecteur éventuel en y présentant les informations les plus importantes et accrocheuses comme le font les journaux contemporains” (160). The second part examines linguistic changes using quantitative data from seven year-long periods spaced every 20–30 years from 1632 to 1782. Certain obsolete forms still used in 17th century literary examples taken from FRANTEXT (ils prindrent, il print, ils tindrent) are completely absent in the historic press showing that there was “une sorte de décalage chronologique entre le français journalistique et le français littéraire” (209). Other modifications such as pour ne pas faire, for the older pour ne faire pas or je veux le faire for the former je le veux faire show a clear progression in this evolution with only a few examples of obsolete word order in the historic press in 1782. McLaughlin confirms that the 18th century was a crucial moment for the change from passé simple to passé composé, even examining contexts that contain adverbial expressions that trigger an increase of the passé composé. Orthographic changes are particularly interesting, since the 18th century is considered to be when modern French becomes standardized. McLaughlin explores etymological and double consonants, usage of i/j and u/v, introduction of accents, restriction of the -ez ending (amitiez, bontez), and the replacement of oi by ai. This later change is particularly noticeabl
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/tfr.2023.a911359
Charles A. Mignot
Reviewed by: Aspect et formes verbales en français par Laurent Gosselin Charles A. Mignot Gosselin, Laurent. Aspect et formes verbales en français. Garnier, 2021. ISBN 978-2-406-10549-7. Pp. 174. Si la différence entre le passé composé et l’imparfait, ou si toute question liée à l’aspect verbal vous intrigue, cet ouvrage répondra sans doute à toutes vos interrogations. Conçu suivant une progression allant du plus accessible au plus complexe, cette monographie résume les principaux travaux de ces trente dernières années sur le sujet et propose de nouvelles modélisations des formes et valeurs aspectuelles. Le premier chapitre passe en revue des études portant sur les différentes catégories liées à l’aspect verbal, à savoir, l’aspect lexical, l’aspect grammatical, l’aspect de phase et l’aspect itératif. Le deuxième chapitre propose une grammaire de l’aspect conceptuel, notamment pour le cas de l’aspect itératif que l’auteur analyse à travers le concept de procès lato sensu et de l’application de quatre règles qui génèrent ou sont liées aux procès stricto sensu, aux séries itératives, aux phases et aux agglomérats. Le troisième chapitre porte sur les périphrases aspectuelles, c’est-à-dire, des périphrases verbales inscrites dans le continuum de la grammaticalisation comme marqueurs d’aspect lexical et/ou grammatical (ex: avoir l’habitude de, commencer à, être en train de, etc.). L’auteur en propose un classement en opposant, entre autres, verbes et coverbes, coverbes prédicatifs et non-prédicatifs, opérateurs aspectuo-temporels, opérateurs de diathèse, opérateurs modaux, etc. Le quatrième chapitre présente une modélisation du système verbal. Après en avoir défini le cadre épistémologique, l’auteur propose un modèle schématisé de la morphosyntaxe verbale du français et y attribue des valeurs spécifiques liées à la construction de structures d’intervalles. Ainsi, de la structure morphosyntaxique se déduisent la structure fonctionnelle (sous forme d’opérateurs) et la structure aspectuo-temporelle (sous forme d’intervalles) dont on déduit finalement la structure conceptuelle de l’énoncé. Le dernier chapitre traite des interactions entre aspect, temps et modalité. L’auteur soutient la thèse que l’aspect s’articule autour du temps ramifié représenté par une asymétrie, centré sur un temps t0, entre, d’une part, une ligne droite qui symbolise le passé irrévocable et, d’autre part, un ensemble de branches qui correspondent aux possibles de l’avenir, et propose une distinction entre modalité temporelle et modalité aspectuelle dont la différence tient sur le choix de deux points de ramification distinct. Cet ouvrage offre ainsi un travail de synthèse très rigoureux de la recherche sur l’aspect en français, en tenant compte des divergences théoriques et des convergences d’analyse en aspectologie, et démontre que les valeurs aspectuelles liées aux nombreuses formes verbales du français sont de nature systématique et systémique: elles suivent à la fois des princip
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