Etudes Anglaises - No4/2013

Jeremy ELPRIN " T]he Life which was, as it were, already written": biographizing epistolary Keats If John Keats suspected he would be "among the English Poets" after his death, could he have imagined the multitude of biographical afterlives which would emerge from, and remain enveloped in, his private correspondence? In examining the relationship between Keats the letter-writer and Keats the biographical subject, this paper reflects on the possibility that this notoriously "posthumous" Romantic poet might have anticipated the assimilation of his letters into a future biography, and investigates the ways in which he continues to have a warm and capable hand in the writing of his life. Si John Keats s'imaginait parmi les poetes anglais apres sa mort, aurait-il pu envisager le nombre de biographies auxquelles sa correspondance privee donnerait vie ? Cet article s'interroge sur le rapport entre Keats l'epistolaire et Keats le sujet biographique: tout d'abord, dans quelle mesure le poete aurait-il pu considerer qu'une eventuelle biographie soit fondee sur son corpus epistolaire ? On verra egalement comment, avec l'appropriation de ses lettres par ses biographes, ce poete notoirement posthume a toujours joue un role majeur, bien que destabilisant, dans l'ecriture de sa propre vie. Laurent FOLLIOT "Points have we all of us where all stand single": Wordsworth's impersonal autobiography Wordsworth's urge towards the egotistical sublime, as well as his occasional oversights, mean that The Prelude can be seen as a blueprint for the imaginative, transcendental narratives of the self that would culminate with Proust's theory of the author's "deeper I." This paper aims at locating Wordsworth's singular achievement by contrasting it with other, contemporary modes of literary self-presentation, based in particular on the notion of character. Wordsworth's peculiar blend of assertiveness and reserve stems as much from his desire to transfigure the vagaries of personal experience into the exemplary 'growth of the poet's mind' as from an insight into the nameless or homeless character of the imagination. La propension de Wordsworth au sublime egotiste, ainsi que sa tendance notoire aux omissions, font du Prelude le modele des recits de soi imaginatifs ou transcendentaux qui trouvent leur point culminant dans la theorie proustienne du moi profond. On s'efforcera ici de cerner la singularite de l'entreprise wordsworthienne en la comparant a d'autres modalites contemporaines de la presentation litteraire de soi, axees notamment sur la notion de caractere. Le melange d'assurance et de reserve qui distingue Wordsworth procede non seulement de son aspiration a l'exemplarite prophetique, mais aussi d'une imagination poetique hantee par la negation du nom et du lieu propres. Stephanie NOIRARD Iain Crichton Smith's A Life: the poeisis of a self in "differance" After giving an overview of the main theories on autobiography and focusing on the debates around the issue of the biographical in poetry, this article offers both a chronological and synchronic reading of A Life, by Scottish poet Iain Crichton Smith (1928-1998). It first aims to analyse to what extent the collection may be looked upon as an autobiography before differentiating the life of the man from that of the poet and studying the actual part each plays in the work in order to then consider the collection as the history of a poetic writing. To do so, it relies on Derrida's theories of differance (difference/deference) and limit, showing that autobiography has a kaleidoscopic nature, made all the easier by the poetic act. Apres un rappel theorique visant a mettre en valeur les principales etudes liees a l'autobiographie et aux debats sur l'autobiographique en poesie, cet article se consacre a une lecture chronologique et synchronique de A Life du poete ecossais Iain Crichton Smith (1928-1998). Dans un premier temps, il prend la mesure du biographique pour differencier ensuite la vie de l'homme de celle du poete et en apprecier la part prise au sein des poemes avant de considerer le recueil comme l'histoire d'une ecriture poetique. Il s'appuie sur les theories derridiennes de differance et de limite pour conclure a un biographique en caleidoscope facilite par le geste poetique. Neil ROBERTS What is literary biography for? Reflections of a biographer and critic This essay reflects on the function of literary biography by comparing the author's own critical study of the poet Peter Redgrove, written without biographical research, with his later biography of the poet. It addresses the conundrum, that biographical knowledge cannot be necessary to the understanding of poetry, and may even compromise it, yet is unavoidable. It proposes two justifications for biography: first, to challenge the often self-serving metatext that the poet himself constructs; and second, to promote an understanding of what it takes, and costs, to create literary works. Cet article s'interroge sur la fonction de la biographie litteraire en comparant une etude critique de Peter Redgrove (Roberts 1994), ecrite en l'absence de toute recherche biographique, et une biographie du poete (Roberts 2012). Le paradoxe est que la connaissance biographique n'est pas necessaire a la comprehension de la poesie, et peut-etre meme qu'elle la compromet, alors qu'elle est pourtant indispensable. Cet essai propose deux justifications de la biographie: d'une part elle secoue le joug du metatexte souvent auto-apologetique construit par le poete lui-meme, de l'autre elle aide a comprendre les conditions, difficiles, necessaires a la creation des oeuvres litteraires. Carle BONAFOUS-MURAT Autobiography or case study? Rethinking Ciaran Carson's poetry in the light of hypermnesia Recent criticism of Ciaran Carson's work tends to emphasize the cultural, geopolitical and historical determinants of his "poetry of place." Models such as the aisling (or vision poem) or the dinnseanchas (the lore of place) have thus bee