French Ecocriticism: From the Early Modern Period to the Twenty-First Century

296 Pages·2017·2.509 MB·English

by  Daniel A. Finch-Race, Stephanie Posthumus

Studies in Literature, Culture, 1 Studies in Literature, Culture,
and the Environment 1 and the Environment 1
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This book expounds fruitful ways of The Editors ph
analysing matters of ecology, environ- Daniel Finch-Race is undertaking a e
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ments, nature, and the non-human Teaching Fellowship at the University of /S From the Early Modern Period
world in a broad spectrum of material in Southampton after completing his PhD at e
French. Scholars from Canada, France, the University of Cambridge. His primary ac to the Twenty-First Century
Great Britain, Spain, and the United research entails ecocritical interpretations R
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States examine the work of writers and of nineteenth-century poetry in French h
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thinkers including Michel de Montaigne, and Italian. His publications include n
Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Arthur Rimbaud, a co-edited volume about textures in Fi
Marguerite Yourcenar, Gilbert Simondon, French contexts, a co-edited issue about A.
Michel Serres, Michel Houellebecq, and ecopoetics in nineteenth-century France, el
Éric Chevillard. The diverse approaches and articles about Baudelaire, Dante, ni
in the volume signal a common desire to Rimbaud, Tennyson, and Verlaine. a
bring together form and content, politics D
and aesthetics, theory and practice, Stephanie Posthumus is Assistant Pro-
under the aegis of the environmental fessor in the Department of Languages, m
humanities. Literatures, and Cultures at McGill Uni- s
versity. Working in the field of contempo- ci
rary French literature, she has published ti
numerous articles on philosophies of ri
nature and ecology, and on representa- c
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tions of landscapes, environments and c
non-human animals. E
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ISBN 978-3-631-67345-4
Studies in Literature, Culture, 1 Studies in Literature, Culture,
and the Environment 1 and the Environment 1
)
s
d
e
(
s
u
m Daniel A. Finch-Race /
u
Daniel A. Finch-Race / h Stephanie Posthumus (eds)
Stephanie Posthumus (eds) st
o
P
French Ecocriticism e
ni French Ecocriticism
a
This book expounds fruitful ways of The Editors ph
analysing matters of ecology, environ- Daniel Finch-Race is undertaking a e
t
ments, nature, and the non-human Teaching Fellowship at the University of /S From the Early Modern Period
world in a broad spectrum of material in Southampton after completing his PhD at e
French. Scholars from Canada, France, the University of Cambridge. His primary ac to the Twenty-First Century
Great Britain, Spain, and the United research entails ecocritical interpretations R
-
States examine the work of writers and of nineteenth-century poetry in French h
c
thinkers including Michel de Montaigne, and Italian. His publications include n
Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Arthur Rimbaud, a co-edited volume about textures in Fi
Marguerite Yourcenar, Gilbert Simondon, French contexts, a co-edited issue about A.
Michel Serres, Michel Houellebecq, and ecopoetics in nineteenth-century France, el
Éric Chevillard. The diverse approaches and articles about Baudelaire, Dante, ni
in the volume signal a common desire to Rimbaud, Tennyson, and Verlaine. a
bring together form and content, politics D
and aesthetics, theory and practice, Stephanie Posthumus is Assistant Pro-
under the aegis of the environmental fessor in the Department of Languages, m
humanities. Literatures, and Cultures at McGill Uni- s
versity. Working in the field of contempo- ci
rary French literature, she has published ti
numerous articles on philosophies of ri
nature and ecology, and on representa- c
o
tions of landscapes, environments and c
non-human animals. E
h
c
n
e
r
F
French Ecocriticism
DaSnTieUl AD. IFEinSc IhN-R LaIcTe/ESRteApThUanRieE P, oCsUthLuTmUuRs E(e, d s)

AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Edited by Hannes Bergthaller, Gabriele Dürbeck,

Robert Emmett, Serenella Iovino, Ulrike Plath

Editorial Board:

Stefania Barca (University of Coimbra, Portugal)
French Ecocriticism
Axel Goodbody (University of Bath, UK)
Isabel Hoving (Leiden University, The Netherlands)
DoFllryo Jømrg etnhsee nE (aUrmlye åM Uondiveerrsnit yP, Sewrieodden )
Timo Maran (University of Tartu, Estonia)
to the Twenty-First Century
Serpil Oppermann (Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey)

Dana Phillips (Towson University, Baltimore, USA)

Stephanie Posthumus (McGill University, Montreal, Canada)

Christiane Solte-Gresser (Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany)
Keijiro Suga (Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan)
Pasquale Verdicchio (University of California, San Diego, USA)
Berbeli Wanning (University of Siegen, Germany)
Sabine Wilke (University of Washington, Seattle, USA)
Hubert Zapf (University of Augsburg, Germany)
Evi Zemanek (University of Freiburg, Germany)

VOLUME 1
Daniel A. Finch-Race/Stephanie Posthumus (eds)

French Ecocriticism
From the Early Modern Period
to the Twenty-First Century
Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
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Image Cover:
Château d'Angers – Moat Garden, © Stephanie Posthumus
ISSN 2365-645X
ISBN 978-3-631-67345-4 (Print)
E-ISBN 978-3-653-06606-7 (E-PDF)
E-ISBN 978-3-631-71324-2 (EPUB)
E-ISBN 978-3-631-71325-9 (MOBI)
DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-06606-7
Open Access: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution
Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 unported license. To view a copy of this
license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
© Daniel A. Finch-Race/Stephanie Posthumus (eds.), 2017
Peter Lang Edition is an Imprint of Peter Lang GmbH.
Peter Lang – Frankfurt am Main ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙
Oxford ∙ Warszawa ∙ Wien
This publication has been peer reviewed.
www.peterlang.com
Contents
Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................7
Daniel A. Finch-Race and Stephanie Posthumus
Introduction: Developing French Ecocriticism ........................................................9
Part I Early Modern Economies and Ecologies
Jeff Persels
Through a Glass Darkly: Dominion and the French Wars of Religion ...............25
Pauline Goul
The Vanity of Ecology: Expenditure in Montaigne’s Vision of the New World .....43
Part II Romanticism and Nature; Naturalism and Animality
Karen F. Quandt
Victor Hugo and the Politics of Ecopoetics ............................................................61
Claire Nettleton
Fauves in the Faubourg: Animal Aesthetics in Émile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin .......81
Part III Nineteenth-Century Ecopoetics
Daniel A. Finch-Race
Ecopoetic Adventures in Rimbaud’s ‘Sensation’ and ‘Ma Bohème’ .......................99
David E. Evans
Towards an Ecopoetics of French Free Verse:
Marie Krysinska’s Rythmes pittoresques ................................................................115
Part IV Twentieth-Century Ecological Thought
Teófilo Sanz
Marguerite Yourcenar’s Ecological Thinking: Wilderness,
Place-Connectedness, Biocentrism, and an Ethic of Care .................................137
6 Contents
Christopher Watkin
Michel Serres: From Restricted to General Ecology ...........................................153
Part V Millennial Bodies, Origins and Becoming-Milieu
Jonathan Krell
Ecoerotica in Stéphane Audeguy’s La Théorie des nuages ..................................175
Nikolaj Lübecker
The Individual as Environment: Watching Jean-Claude Rousseau’s
La Vallée close with Lucretius and Simondon ......................................................195
Part VI Twenty-First-Century Natural Limits
Anaïs Boulard
Writing (on) Environmental Catastrophes: The End of the World in
Éric Chevillard’s Sans l’orang-outan and Michel Houellebecq’s
La Possibilité d’une île ..............................................................................................215
Hannes De Vriese
On the Meaning of Being Alone with Nature: Sylvain Tesson’s Ecocritical
Sincerity and Ecopoetic Sensuality in Dans les forêts de Sibérie .......................231
Part VII Horizons and Prospects
Stephanie Posthumus
Engaging with Cultural Differences:
The Strange Case of French écocritique ................................................................253
Notes on Contributors ............................................................................................275
Index..........................................................................................................................279
Acknowledgements
Thanks go to Prof. Michael Moriarty, Prof. Emma Wilson, Dr Martin Crowley, and
Ms Esther Palmer of the Department of French at the University of Cambridge;
the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Cambridge; the French
Embassy in London; the Society of French Studies; Dr Jean Khalfa, Sir Gregory
Winter, the Fellows and the staff of Trinity College in Cambridge for having sup-
ported the proceedings of ‘French ecocriticism’ that took place in the Winstanley
Lecture Theatre on Friday 8 May 2015.