Sujets en travail : les personnages dans les romans de John Cowper Powys (1915-1936)

The working of the subject in the novels of john cowper powys (1915-1936)

• Auteur / Autrice : Daniel Thomières
• Direction : Michel Gresset
• Type : Thèse de doctorat
• Discipline(s) : Lettres
• Date : Soutenance en 1993
• Etablissement(s) : Paris 7

Mots clés

Mots clés contrôlés

Psychologie

Personnages

Powys, John Cowper (1872-1963)

Résumé

Cette these etudie les huit romans de la premiere periode de john cowper powys. Presente sous l'angle psychologique, le personnage est sujet en travail sans fin et sans finalite constituant des agencements temporaires de singularites heterogenes, lesquels, recevant une identite provisoire, forment l'identite du sujet. Le sujet est ainsi processus de separation temporaire et toujours partielle a partir du non-humain. Nos references theoriques incluent certains concepts pris, entre autres, a la psychanalyse (freud et lacan), a deleuze, a bakhtine et surtout a powys lui-meme (dont les divers essais apparaissent tres modernes). Apres une longue introduction theorique et methodologique, unpremier chapitre considere le roman comme multivers (terme emprunte par le romancier a william james), realite purement immanente permettant le fonctionnement du sujet et dans lequel aucun point de vue n'est superieur aux autres. Le deuxieme chapitre porte sur le concept de double difference (difference des generations et difference des sexes) par rapport auquel le sujet se definit et se constitue. Nous analysons alors un certain nombre d'aspect du travail du sujet : la perversion, la regression fictive, le narcissisme, la paranoia et delires, le mysticisme. Le troisieme chapitre est consacre aux imaginaires specifiques des personnages et etudie comment ils construisent leur <<ame>> par rapport aux images qu'ils ont d'euxmemes et des autres grace a un melange de perceptions, de fantasmes et d'identifications. Le dernier chapitre enfin tente de cerner les differents niveaux du travail du temps sur le sujet, le forcant a remanier ses agencements. On y utilise les concepts de repetition, de rythmes binaires et de temps irreversible.

The thesis deals with powys's first eight novels which make up what is regarded as his first period. The character is studied as a psychological subject. It is seen as the stage of an endless, aimless process of self-transformation swhich constitutes temporary groupings of heterogeneous details that are given a short-lived unity and make up the character's own identity. The subject can be considered as always being caught in the process of cutting itself partially off from the non-human and the inanimate. Our theoretical references include a number of concepts borrowed from psychoanalysis (freud, lacan), deleuze, bakhtin (among others), but also from powys himself, whose essays are a mine of very modern insights into the working of man's psyche. Following a long theoretical introduction, our first chapter studies powys's novels as so many multiverses (a term powys took from william james). Each novel is thus a purely immanent universe in which no one point of view is superior to the others. The second chapter deals with the concept of the double difference (the difference between generations and the difference between sexes) in relation to which the subject has to define and constitute itself. We analyse a number of aspects of the working of the subject : perversion, fictitious regression, narcissism, paranoia and deliriums, mysticism. The third chapter describes the character's specific imaginaries and shows hoxw they construct their own ''souls'' thanks to the images, fantasies and identifications they entertain of themselves and of each other. The fourth and last chapter is concerned with the various ways time affects the subject and forces it to modifiy its heterogeneous identity. We make use of concepts of repeyition, binary rhythms and irreversible time.