Meridian Critic

The myth of Oedipus is a long disambiguation and the history of relations between myth and literature is surely very particular. More than other myths, the myth of Oedipus has been quickly associated to a literary work so that Occidental people have confounded Oedipus with Oedipus the King or Oedipus at Colonus, and the same myth with Sophocles’ tragedies. If in the past we had no other knowledge of the myth that the literary heritage, it seems that today we assist to a renaissance of myth which gets an important meaning into the literary and psychoanalytic collective conscience. A true metamorphose which allows reinventing the speech on Oedipus. Gide, Cocteau, Robbe-Grillet or Anouilh: the reference to Sophocles is always accompanied to a refusal of Sophocles. This showed the born of few modern Oedipus, got rid of the first myth. Gide’s Oedipus (1931), Cocteau’s The Infernal Machine (1934), Robbe-Grillet’s The Erasers (1953) and Anouilh’s Œdipe ou le roi boiteux (Oedipus, or the Lame King) (1978) show clearly the metabolism of archetypal myth.

From the second half of the 18th century onward, Pygmalion’s story has acquired a remarkable importance for Romantic representations of the artist, functioning primarily as a myth of artistic creation. This paper presents a 19th century Greek renarration of the myth: the poem Pygmalion, ancient myth (1869) of Dimitris Paparrigopoulos. The interest of this epic poem resides in its inversion of the original signification of the metamorphosis found at the core of the myth: the animation of Pygmalion’s beloved statue, which traditionally exalted the power of art to generate life, becomes here a vehicle for denouncing art as a source of illusion and disenchantment.

Metamorphosis lies at the heart of the Melusinian legend. It concerns the passing from one kingdom to another since the fairy, appearing as a woman, can transform into a boar or, especially, a serpent or dragon. Melusine is a true spirit of Nature, wherein lies the explanation of her ability to assume the aspects of different creatures: metamorphosis expresses the fairy’s very essence, as attested by the troubling theme of motherhood with which she is associated. Still, transformation of the beauty is not based solely in bodily change as Melusine is seeking a soul and aspiring to become a human woman in order to obtain salvation. This powerful metamorphic theme both engenders and motivates the rewritings of the legend in a variety of forms, from tale to poem, to drama or to novel, as shown by a rapid chronology. It is thus literature itself which becomes metamorphic.

This article deals with the analysis of metamorphosis seen as the result of a magic action; it takes into account literary works of the XIIth and XIIIth centuries, during which magic relied on a deep knowledge of nature, by fairies, who learned the secrets of nature from Merlin.

In Perrault’s stories there is a certain amount of irony towards women, which was probably an influence of his century. This article deals with certain re-writings of his stories, by women-writers, in which this “macho” attitude is less visible.

The romance of Tristan and Iseult owes its success - both during the Middle Ages and in the modern age - to the theme of love and death, associated with that of adulterous love, both of them being subordinated to the theme of Destiny. The possibility of the multiple interpretations of the story, that is, the ambiguity of the narrative, is generated by the mythical motivation of human behaviour, which has led to the rise of a new cultural myth, that of the trinity Eros-magic-nature. Don Quixote (the illusion of Eros) and Robinson Crusoe (the absence of Eros) may be seen as modern replies to the myth of Tristan and Iseult.

The Thousand and One Nights is a book rich in metamorphoses and transfigurations. Magic is a main theme and is continuously reverberated by the book structure of stories-inside-stories. The narrative wheel of the Arabian Nights includes the well-known djinns, but also a dazzling train of women, witches or sorceresses, which exercise the art of metamorphosis on the opposite sex. Victims of their supernatural and sometimes capricious power, men are changed into dogs or turned half to stone. Which is the role played by these metamorphoses in the text? In which way these sorceresses help to develop the discourse of the sultana perched on the edge of the chasm of death? In the light of these questions, this article focuses on the relationship between women and metamorphoses in the book of The Thousand and One Nights.

Throughout the centuries, Tangiers has been conducive to an atmosphere of exchange where a plurality of cultures and people have met and been enriched by their diversities. Situated at the crossroads of Europe and the African continents, its geographical position, its international status and the singularity of its landscapes have captivated many travelers and explorers. Tangiers has also inspired a mysterious and deep fascination, making it an artistic inspiration for novelists, poets, painters and musicians. In this study we shall examine the various perspectives of Tangiers as represented in the entire literary work of Ahmed Beroho, a native and fervent admirer of this unforgettable city.

In the short story «Le Fils de la Nuit» written by the francophonic author Monique Agénor, a baby is going to be sacrified because he was born at a ‘‘wrong moment’’. Thanks to the ceremony his father hold, he lives a metamorphosis of his own person after his death: his soul goes into the body of a sacred snake. This article explains the rites of the baby’s sacrifice on a first hand, and on the second hand, his metamorphosis’ process called «metempsycosis». Then, this article shows how Monique Agénor denunciates the blind respect of inhumanistic traditions in the Isle of Madagascar.

The autofiction and autobiography are the two tendencies that frame the writing of writer Marguerite Duras, the two possible interpretations evoked by the literary criticism concerning her writings. Duras was telling that she lived the reality as a myth, in this way she was contesting any direct clue concerning at her life in her writing. Understanding her work we distinguish two critic directions concerning her source of inspiration: either Duras has been inspiring from her own life and she was writing an autobiography, or she was considering her writing as the fruit of imaginary reality, metamorphosis, and the writer is considered as a artist of autofiction. Nothing must surprise the reader, because it can be seen from the beginning, that this writer likes to invent, to disorientate and to make difficulty reader's thinking. The ambiguity is the keyword of the existence and her work.

In 1974 a big litterary trick begins: Emile Ajar. Six years and four texts later, a testament book by Romain Gary stated that Emile Ajar was actually his pseudonym. Neverthless, Emile Ajar's litterary work was strong and really different from Romain Gary's books. All of the important themes treated by the forged author are in his first book, Gros-Câlin. In this article we analyse the attempts of being born - the mimicry, the moulting and the failed metamorphosis - made by the narrator in this text and their relations with the double life of Romain Gary and Emile Ajar.

Simon’s thematic universe is composed of matter that is constantly being reshaped, starting with the corruption of the existing world, to produce diverse realities which are never fully differentiated. Not only people and objects, but the writing itself is dismantled and reassembled, both within individual texts and in the author’s work as a whole. In the light of this all-encompassing metamorphosis, the definitive nature of Photography, which aims to offer a durable form to the world, represents a paradox which the author attempts to resolve in a variety of ways.

Truismes in French (or Pig tales in English), the first and most famous novel of the French writer Marie Darrieussecq, is not just a “story of lust and transformation”. The slow process of metamorphosis runs through it as an undermining scheme contaminating the multiple levels of narration. The reader in praesentia continues to exist throughout marks of subtle redundancies. A toying within the mind, in the narrative continuum, takes over the sensational evidence that we, as readers, are part of the whole writing and reading process. However, at the moment of our sensations becomes our belief, the narrator excludes the reader making him in absentia. That modifying turns achieves the brutal metamorphosis of the reader, perhaps announcing - after what Roland Barthes called “La mort de l’auteur” - the reader’s death. Or would it be a different way to question our whole reading behaviour and consciousness? That is what this article proposes to explore.

One of the most original contemporary Romanian writers, Doina Rusti is an active public figure, publishing books about mass-media, cinematography and literary criticism. Her second novel, Zogru, seen by critics as a solid fictional production, it is the story of an unearthly spirit named Zogru. His picaresque adventure invites the reader to travel among and through humans and to witness their spiritual and physical experiences.

On the boundary between identity and difference, metamorphosis illustrates one of the possible attitudes of the I to its inner Other. This relationship is analyzed in three works: "The Nose" by Gogol (1883), The Metamorphosis by Kafka (1912) and The Breast by Roth (1972). In these narratives, metamorphosis reveals aspects of the I that it ignores. The transformations affirm that identity is multiple and dynamic. The confrontation with the inner Other threatens the protagonists with disintegration. On the other hand, metamorphosis inspires the writers and their readers. It creates fictional situations where they can test contradictory variants of themselves that otherwise they would prefer to mute.

By being presented in the form of a réécrivain i.e. a writer-reader who interprets old texts, Cocteau opened the way with the modern idea that the writing is always a rewriting, even a metamorphosis, made by words and images, sounds and of gestures. Cocteau renovates the mythical tale of Pétrone and wrote “a very free adaptation”. He gives to the novel of Pétrone, a dialogued form, that is to say an act made up of six scenes of unequal lengths, which he conceives like a “farce de tréteau [1]”. Cocteau adapts the ancient tale for a public of the XXth century by writing a dialogue “simple et écrit en gros caractères pour être compris de tous”.

Many European writers of the twentieth century, taking a critical look at civilization, have either noted, denounced or wished a “metamorphosis” of man into animal. Georges Bataille even speaks of a “metamorphosis obsession” to theorize the desire of civilized man to behave like a wild animal. This article presents the major ways in which such as a “metamorphosis obsession” manifests itself in a series of twentieth century European literary works, where this obsession has become, shall we say, even more obsessional. Three types of metamorphosis are discussed: assimilation (where all men are likened to animals), dehumanization (where a group of men are treated like animals) and animalization (where one believes that men must assume their animal nature to become fully human). All three approaches aim to prove that civilization has failed to “debestialize” man, if it is not, to man’s greater shame, by reducing him at the state of an inferior or domestic animal.

Our study deals with the image of the teenager in Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. Tadzio, the graceful, tender Polish boy on a holiday, is an ambiguous, androgynous figure. His smile enthralls the sickly Aschenbach who falls prey to a mute and desperate old-age quest while on the verge of death. The figure of the teenager is delineated by a specific social class : beauty is matched with nobility. Tadzio is the symbol of civilization and refinement (cf. Plato's Banquet and Phedra, Xenophon, Mercury in Odysseus, the psychopompous Hermes, etc). Culture bolsters Aschenbach's love and feeds his inner mythology. The teenager becomes the mysterious hero capable of changing Aschenbach's vision of ideal love. Body and desire can henceforth triumph over the soul. Tadzio (Beauty, Purity, Passionate Love), transgressing all interdicts, is the instrument of Venus and the old man is her prey. He draws the old man away from the world of reason towards the world of passion... an abortive passion inspired by the god of Love and leading him to death. Yet the young man is not important in himself. More significant is his representation in the mind of the old man running after his wasted youth around the deserted streets of Venice. Desire itself matters more than the object of desire. As if transfigured by it, the old man ends up temporarily embellished by self-love rather than lust. But no one can go through their own life again; nor can we tread the wonderland of youth anew, even if the price to pay is utter degradation. Death alone can lead back to things past, but love itself is helpless.

This study emphasizes the evolution of one of the foremost Romanian poetess after the war, Maria Banus. If her first volume, Tara fetelor (1937), was obviously marked by the influence of the avant-garde, after the war Maria Banus had to pay a heavy tribute to the “socialist realism” imported from the U.S.S.R. However, after 1960 she regained her authentic voice and she even managed to produce some of the most important books of Romanian poetry at the end of the century, Tocmai ieseam din arena (1967), Portretul din Fayum (1969), Oricine si ceva (1972), Noiembrie inocentul (1981) etc.

The concept of Francophone Literature was first used by Gerard Tougas in his work “French Language Writers and France” (1973). In time, the term came to be also known as French language literature or new literary spaces. Getting closer to the Francophone literature means opening up to the world, embarking on a genuine dialogue among cultures and embracing the idea of cultural globalization. Québec literature, which is a French language literature, is also known under the name of French-Canadian literature. The explanation is given by the very influence that French literature has always exerted on Canadian literature. An important part of Francophone literature, French-Canadian literature is very popular around the world due to a few established representatives such as Louis Hémon, Felix-Antoine Savard, Ringuet, Anne Hébert and Yves Beauchemin. Our paper, called “Thirty Acres - Novel of the Land”, is a possible interpretation of the novel “Thirty Acres” written by Philippe Paneton, author known under the pseudonym Ringuet. The novel was published in 1938 and is considered to close the so-called literature of the land age, a literary movement which had a long life in Québec. Those who speak about “land”, they speak about “heritage” and “traditions”. As a consequence, the aim of this stream of novels of the land is to persuade the people to remain in the countryside and thus put an end to rural exodus. Ringuet’s novel “Thirty Acres” also belongs to this literary current and relates the life of a farmer named Euchariste Moisan, who deserts his native land in order to live in the United States. The novel holds different meanings: it is the story of a family, a psychological novel, a history of a culture and even a bildungsroman. In other words, it is a valuable novel, a corner-stone of the special identity which is Québec identity, within the larger context of Francophone literature.