Métafictions (1670–1730)

By Jean-Paul Sermain. (Les Dix-huitième Siècles, 65). Paris, Champion, 2002. 462 pp. The period of fictional history covered by this study, like the contemporary Hazardian ‘crise de conscience’, is one of flux and uncertainty. Between the collapse of the baroque novel and the generation of Prévost and Marivaux, a bewildering variety of genres struggle to emerge, and Jean-Paul Sermain's merit is to have traced a unity behind this fermentation in the concept of metafiction. By this he means fiction which reflects on its own fictional nature, drawing attention in a variety of ways to the presence in the work of author and potential reader and to the aesthetic function of imagination. It is often critical of fiction, and its socio-intellectual agenda befits a broadly defined Enlightenment. Yet it seeks to create new fictional modes as well as to subvert old ones, and whatever its mode of operation, it forces readers into an active interpretative role. Sermain begins by examining fiction's critical potential, arising from the world of the fable and from Don Quixote as well as post-baroque rationalism and classical aesthetic. Marivaux's early novels, exploiting the topos of the mad reader, show the convergence of these influences particularly clearly. Sermain offers an alternative to the vraisemblance-based fictional history stemming from Watt and his school, but he is inevitably concerned with the presence of the real world in fiction, and his next step is to explore how metafictions engage with it. The fictional world is shown to emerge from discourse rather than mimesis, and irony and paradox are the tricks used to establish contrasting forms of relationship between this world and its component discourses. Paradox involves imposture, a technique of denunciation particularly appropriate to religious polemic or libertin texts, and trompe l'œil, used in memoir novels both heroic and comic, making discourse look true while also providing means of contesting the appearance. Irony, whereby discourse is made to look attractive while also being subverted, may involve a dramatic approach, with the target of irony entering into dialogue as in the Comte de Gabalis, or a polyphony of conflicting voices, as in some libertin or fantastic novels. The next phase of the argument deals with the way various genres generate metafictional reflection, either illuminating or denouncing the power of the novel. Veiras, Foigny and Tyssot de Patot transform the utopia into metafiction by showing the ‘romanesque’ in solidarity with the errors of European society and highlighting the interaction of language and fiction, while the reverse utopia of the Lettres persanes uses fiction to provoke the reader's critical reason. Allegory, more hostile to the novel, generates second, more or less veiled meanings to texts; though the technique is mistrusted at this period, Télémaque is open to an allegoric reading which, though critical of fiction, finds a positive role for aesthetic qualities. The anti-novel, more hostile still, makes the romanesque genre look grotesque, as in the abbé Bordelon's radical attack on the power of the written word. Finally, Sermain identifies a process of recycling, whereby fiction is revived by the recombination of various types of discourse, a process which retains critical elements but also discovers a new creative dynamism. This involves complex framework narratives and the foregrounding of the process of writing, or the author as a character, thus facilitating comment on various fictional styles and their associated lifestyles, and contributing to the emergence of a fiction of worldliness. Above all, Sermain celebrates the new genre of fairy tale as the most complete metafiction. With popular roots, but highly self-conscious and frankly an invention, it allows ironic exploration of the aims of fiction in the context of an Enlightenment ideology, and an engaging creativity based on the recombination of heterogenous elements. This wide-ranging and closely argued investigation, proceeding at an unhurried rate and with considerable subtlety, offers fresh critical insights into Perrault, Galland, Mme d'Aulnoy, Mme de Villedieu, Lesage and Challe, as well as a whole range of lesser-known figures. It also demonstrates how the better-known novels of the next generation are anticipated in their works. Cumulatively, this study amounts to a major work of synthesis

Art · Art history · Baroque · Champion · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Fable · Fictional universe · Humanities · Irony · Literature · Magic realism · Metafiction · Narrative · French Literature and Criticism · Historical and Literary Analyses · Historical and Literary Studies · History · Philosophy