Abstract
It is easy to assume that the history of fiction begins in the earliest days of civilization. Human beings tell stories, after all. That is how we reiterate our meaning, how we understand reality, and how we amuse ourselves, though I admit that I am guessing that fiction has a long history. We really do not know, since so few stories remain from the earliest days, and validating ancient stories remains problematic. Why did early fictional tales not achieve the long life of epic poems, tragedies, and comedies? Is it possibly because most were short, and brevity brings with it the suspicion of a lack of substance and importance? Only recently have literati been willing to readily admit that the authors of short stories may be genuine artists and that the genre is an appropriate vehicle for art. Previously that was not the case. Balzac, for example, though a master of long and short fiction, made it very clear in Illusions perdues and La muse du département that the briefer form had very little importance for him. He believed that short stories were on the whole drafted as filler for newspapers to entertain readers and to produce a few francs for the mercenaries who produced them. Subsequently, however, because of a series of masterful examples of the genre, our perceptions changed. Flaubert, Chekov, Maupassant, Hawthorne, Faulkner, Joyce, and others, after all, gave the short story genre legitimacy. One no longer needed to apologize for practicing it.
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Notes
“A story cycle… is a set of stories linked to each other in such a way as to maintain a balance between the individuality of each of the stories and the necessities of the larger unit”—Forrest L. Ingram, Representative Short Story Cycles of the Twentieth Century: Studies in a Literary Genre (The Hague: Mouton, 1971) 15.
Susan Garland Mann, The Short Story Cycle: A Genre Companion and Reference Guide (New York: Greenwood P, 1989) 15.
Some years after the publication of Ingram’s book, Robert M. Luscher suggests preferring the term “short story sequence” to “short story cycle”—“The Short Story Sequence: An Open Book,” Short Story Theory at a Crossroads, ed. Susan Lohafer and Jo Ellyn Clarey (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1987) 148–67. For reasons that will become clear, I prefer the term “cycle,” which is large enough to incorporate the two most important modes of cyclical structure: sequential and image.
Albert Camus, Théâtre, récits, nouvelles, ed. Roger Quilliot, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1962) 1568.
Baldi, “L’exil et le royaume d’Albert Camus: une lecture de la nouvelle ‘Les muets,’” Francophonia 13.24 (1993): 91.
Prescott, quoted from English Showalter, Jr., Exiles and Strangers: A Reading of Camus’s Exile and the Kingdom (Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1984) 10.
Yosei Matsumoto, “L’ombre portée par Le premier homme sur L’exil et le royaume,” Albert Camus: Lettres modernes 20 (2004): 93.
For a sensitive discussion, see, Gaëton Picon, L’usage de la lecture, 2 (Paris: Mercure de France, 1961) 170–72.
Peter Cryle’s warning that the author’s ambiguity represents a “creative conciliation of divergent attitudes” should, however, be remembered—Bilan critique: L’exil et le royaume d’Albert Camus: Essai d’analyse (Paris: Minard, 1973) passim.
The conflict between philosophic and artistic thought and presentation has been widely discussed— e.g., Germaine Brée, Albert Camus, Columbia Essays on Modern Writers, 1 (New York: Columbia UP, 1964) 44–45.
Louis Hudon, “The Stranger and the Critics,” Yale French Studies 25 (1960): 60.
Anthony Zahareas, “‘La femme adultère’: Camus’s Ironic Vision of the Absurd,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 5 (1963): 319.
Jules Roy, “La tragédie algérienne,” Camus (Paris: Hachette, 1964) 208.
Owen J. Miller, “L’exil et le royaume: Cohérence du recueil,” Revue des lettres modernes 360–65 (1973): 21–50.
Laura G. Durand’s subsequent, helpful “Thematic Counterpoint in L’exil et le royaume,” French Review 47 (1974): 1110–22, should be mentioned, as well.
Claude Coste, “Le sang dans Les diaboliques de Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly,” Tangence 70 (Fall 2002): 53–65; Pasco, “A Study of Allusion: Barbey’s Stendhal in ‘Le rideau cramoisi,’” PMLA 88 (1973): 461–71; Karen Humphreys, “Dandyism, Gems, and Epigrams: Lapidary Style and Genre Transformation in Barbey’s Les diaboliques,” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 31.3–4 (2003): 259–61, 269–73.
Claude Coste, “Le sang dans Les diaboliques de Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly,” Tangence 70 (Fall 2002): 53–65; Pasco, “A Study of Allusion: Barbey’s Stendhal in ‘Le rideau cramoisi,’” PMLA 88 (1973): 461–71; Karen Humphreys, “Dandyism, Gems, and Epigrams: Lapidary Style and Genre Transformation in Barbey’s Les diaboliques,” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 31.3–4 (2003): 259–61, 269–73.
Claude Coste, “Le sang dans Les diaboliques de Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly,” Tangence 70 (Fall 2002): 53–65; Pasco, “A Study of Allusion: Barbey’s Stendhal in ‘Le rideau cramoisi,’” PMLA 88 (1973): 461–71; Karen Humphreys, “Dandyism, Gems, and Epigrams: Lapidary Style and Genre Transformation in Barbey’s Les diaboliques,” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 31.3–4 (2003): 259–61, 269–73.
Victor Chklovski [Shklovsky], Sur la théorie de la prose, trans. Guy Verret (1929; Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, 1973) 99.
Maddocks, “Marcel Proust: Witness to a Dissolving Dream,” The Christian Science Monitor, July 10, 1971: 9.
J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols (New York: Philosophical Library, 1962) 154. See, René Guénon’s related thought: Le symbolisme de la croix (Paris: Vega, 1931) 204–06. Blaise Pascal would have us believe that Janus’s (and Janine’s) problem is universal: “Let each one examine his thoughts; he will find them all occupied with the past or with the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we think of it, it is only to gain some insight into the future. The present is never our goal. The past and the present are our means; only the future is our goal. So it is that we never live, but only hope to live, and are always arranging things to be happy. Inevitably, we will never be”—Pascal, Pensées, ed. Philippe Sellier (Paris: Mercure de France, 1976) 57n80.
Pascal, Pensées, ed. Philippe Sellier (Paris: Mercure de France, 1976) 57n80.
Carina Gadourek, Les innocents et les coupables: essai d’exégèse de l’œuvre d’Albert Camus (The Hague: Mouton, 1963) 202.
And that Victor Brombert considers the “word ‘sun’ [a] symbol of absolute violence”—The Intellectual Hero: Studies in the French Novel, 1880–1955 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1961) 228.
See, also, Patricia J. Johnson, “An Impossible Search for Identity: Theme and Imagery in Camus” ‘Le renégat,’ “Research Studies (Pullman, WA) 37 (1969): esp. 172–77, for a discussion of the sun and its relationship to Christ.
In respect to “râ,” see, Stephen Ullmann, The Image in the Modern French Novel: Gide, Alain-Fournier, Proust, Camus (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1960) 293.
Philip Thody, Albert Camus: 1913–1960 (New York: Macmillan, 1961) 188, and the related note on 240.
Roger Barny, “Une lecture descriptive du ‘Renégat,’” Mélanges offerts à Jean Peytard, ed. Jacques Bourquin et Daniel Jacobi (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1993) 145, 149.
In respect to the theme of silence, see, Pierre Gasear, “Le dernier visage de Camus,” Camus (Paris: Hachette, 1964) 262–63.
Lawrence D. Joiner, “Reverie and Silence in ‘Le renégat,’” Romance Notes 16 (1975): 262–67.
Albert Dauzat, Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de famille et prénoms de France (Paris: Larousse, 1951).
Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges, Dictionary of Surnames (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988); and their A Dictionary of First Names (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1990).
Roelens, “Un texte, son ‘histoire’ et l’histoire ‘L’hôte’ d’Albert Camus,” Revue des sciences humaines 165 (1977): 14.
Guers-Villate, “Rieux et Daru ou le refus délibéré d’influencer autrui,” Papers on Language and Literature 3 (1967): 231, a conclusion that Cryle accepts (e.g., 135).
Constance Rooke, “Camus’ ‘The Guest’: The Message on the Blackboard,” Studies in Short Fiction 14 (1977): 78. Of course, the text gives no evidence of Daru’s hand.
Simon, “Camus’ Kingdom: The Native Host and an Unwanted Guest,” Studies in Short Fiction 1 (1964): 290.
Albert Camus, Essais, ed. R. Quilliot and L. Faucon, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1965) 1079.
For Jerry Curtis, the star is “that spacious, silent and obscure inner vision which we call intuition”—“Structure and Space in Camus” ‘Jonas,’ “Modern Fiction Studies” 22 (1976–77): 575.
Raymond Gay-Crosier’s consideration of the star is excellent: “Renegades Revisited: from Jonas to Clamence,” Albert Camus’ L’exil et le royaume: The Third Decade, ed. Anthony Rizzuto (Toronto: Paratexte, 1988) 21–26.
See, also, Adele King, “Jonas ou L’artiste au travail,” French Studies 20 (1966): 267–80.
Michael Issacharoff, L’espace et la nouvelle (Paris: Jose Corti, 1976) 101–02.
Philip Thody makes the point clearly: “D’Arrast cannot sacrifice his intelligence and join the natives of Iguape in the wild dancing through which they quite forget their own individuality, any more than he can live in his own country where ‘the rulers are merchants or policemen.’… He can share religious feeling but not religious faith”—Albert Camus: A Study of His Work (1957; rpt. New York: Grove, 1959) 91.
Jacques Petit, ed., Œuvres romanesques complètes, by Barbey d’Aurevilly, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 2 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1964, 1966) 2.1275.
Jacques-Henry Bornecque, ed., “Introduction,” Les Diaboliques, by Barbey d’Aurevilly (Paris: Gamier, 1963) xcvii.
A fictional character to whom a story is told—Gerald Prince, A Grammar of Stories (The Hague: Mouton, 1973);
“Introduction to the Study of the Narratee,” Reader-Response Criticism, ed. Jane P. Tompkins (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1980) 7–25.
See, also, Robert Willard Artinian’s “Barbey’s Decadence: The Test of Time,” French Literature Series 11 (1984): 89–96.
Anne Giard, “Le récit lacunaire dans les Diaboliques,” Poétique 41 (1980): 39.
Jacques Petit, “Note sur la structure des Diaboliques,” Revue des lettres modernes 199–202 (1969): 88. See, also, his comment 2.1302n2.
Gracq, “Préface,” Les diaboliques, by Barbey d’Aurevilly (Paris: Livre de poche, 1960) 3.
Petit, Essais de lectures des Diaboliques de Barbey d’Aurevilly (Paris: Lettres modernes Minard, 1974) 32–33.
Berthier, L’ensorcelée, Les diaboliques de Barbey d’Aurevilly (Paris: Champion, 1987) 102.
See, also, Jacques-Henry Bornecque, ed., Les diaboliques, by Barbey d’Aurevilly (Paris: Garnier, 1963) c.
Philippe Berthier, “Les diaboliques et la critique française,” Revue des lettres modernes 403–08 (1974): 92. For Jean-Paul Bonnes, it is “doubtless the least interesting of these stories and… the least diabolical”—Le bonheur du masque: petite introduction aux romans de Barbey d’Aurevilly (Tournai: Casterman, 1947) 99.
For Jean-Paul Bonnes, it is “doubtless the least interesting of these stories and… the least diabolical”—Le bonheur du masque: petite introduction aux romans de Barbey d’Aurevilly (Tournai: Casterman, 1947) 99.
Patrick Brady has pointed out in detail, the painting turns around impotence: Interdisiplinary Interpretation of Art and Literature: The Principle of Convergence (Knoxville: New Paradigm Press, 1996) ch. 2.
J.-K. Huysmans, À rebours (1884; Paris: Fasquelle, 1968) 40.
In respect to this erotic mass, see, especially, Philippe Berthier, “Les diaboliques à table,” Barbey d’Aurevilly: L’ensorcelée et les diaboliques: La chose sans nom, Actes du colloque du 16 janvier 1988 (Paris: SEDES, 1988) 134–35.
Marie-Claire Ropars-Wuilleumier, “‘Le plus bel amour de Don Juan’: narration et signification,” Littérature 9 (1973): 118.
Jean-Pierre Boucher, Les diaboliques de Barbey d’Aurevilly: une esthétique de la dissimulation et de la provocation (Montréal: P de l’U du Québec, 1976) 52.
Andrée Hirschi, ed., “Le ‘Procès’ des Diaboliques,” Revue des lettres modernes 9 (1974): 19.
Przybos, “‘Le plus bel amour de Don Juan’ or a Child’s Phantom Pregnancy,” Notebook in Cultural Analysis 2 (1985): 56–57.
McKeon (106) also cites Pascaline Mourier-Casile, who discusses the readers’ desire for a conclusion, a frustration “that will not be satisfied”— Barbey d’Aurevilly, “Préface,” Les diaboliques (Paris: Pocket, 1993) 24–25.
Armand Le Corbeiller, Les diaboliques de Barbey d’Aurevilly (Paris: Malfère, 1939) 93.
Pasco, “Barbey d’Aurevilly’s Force of Evil dessous les cartes,” Romance Studies 28.1 (January 2010): 36–47.
Petit, “Le temps romanesque et la ‘mise en abyme,’” Revue des lettres modernes 199–202 (1969): 37–38.
Jacques Petit, “Note sur la structure des Diaboliques,” Revue des lettres modernes 199–202 (1969): 199–202.
Culler, Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975) 113–14. This statement needs, of course, considerable development, which Culler has expertly provided—see his chapter, “Literary Competence,” 113–30.
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© 2010 Allan H. Pasco
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Pasco, A.H. (2010). Making Short Long: Short Story Cycles. In: Inner Workings of the Novel. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117433_2
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