Models of Collaboration in Nineteenth-Century French Literature: Several Authors, One Pen

Contributing to the current lively discussion of collaboration in French letters, this collection raises fundamental questions about the limits and definition of authorship in the context of the nineteenth century's explosion of collaborative ventures. While the model of the stable single author that prevailed during the Romantic period dominates the beginning of the century, the authority of the speaking subject is increasingly in crisis through the century's political and social upheavals. Chapters consider the breakdown of authorial presence across different constructions of authorship, including the numerous cenacles of the Romantic period; collaborative ventures in poetry through the practice of the "Tombeaux" and as seen in the Album zutique; the interplay of text and image through illustrations for literary works; the collective ventures of literary journals; and multi-author prose works by authors such as the Goncourt brothers and Erckmann-Chatrian. Interdisciplinary in scope, these essays form a cohesive investigation of collaboration that extends beyond literature to include journalism and the relationships and tensions between literature and the arts. The volume will interest scholars of nineteenth-century French literature, and more generally, any scholar interested in what's at stake in redefining the role of the French author

Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction: on collaboration, Seth Whidden; Collaboration Before the Revolution: How often did authors write alone?: ways of becoming an author in early modern France, Joan DeJean; 'Le dîner des philosophes': conviviality and collaboration in the French Enlightenment, John R. Iverson. The 19th Century: A Long Century of Collaboration: Collaboration and solidarity: the collective strategies of the romantic cenacle, Anthony Glinoer; Smooth collaboration: vitalism and Judaism in Erckmann-Chatrian's L'Ami Fritz, Julia Przybos; Sharing one's death: Le Tombeau de Théophile Gautier (1873), Pascal Durand; Poetry in collaboration in the 1870s: the Cercle Zutique, 'Le Fleuve' and 'The Raven', Seth Whidden; Erasing collaboration: the case of André Gill and Louis de Gramont, Joseph Acquisto; The Médan group and the campaign of naturalism, Jennifer K. Wolter; From illustration to decoration: Maurice Denis' illustrations for Paul Verlaine and André Gide, Frédéric Canovas; A collective experiment in literary journalism: the case of La Revue Wagnérienne, Pamela A. Genova; Rhyparographers: Les Frères Goncourt and monstrous writing, Lawrence R. Schehr. The 20th Century: Collaboration and Modernism: Belgian, modernist and avant-garde literary journals from the early 1920s: a model for network collaboration, Daphné de Marneffe; Index.

About the Author :
Seth Whidden is Associate Professor of French at Villanova University, USA. He is the author of Leaving Parnassus, and coeditor-in-chief of the scholarly journal Parade sauvage: revue d'études rimbaldiennes. Seth Whidden, Joan DeJean, John R. Iverson., Anthony Glinoer, Julia Przybos, Pascal Durand, Joseph Acquisto, Jennifer K. Wolter, Frédéric Canovas, Pamela A. Genova, Lawrence R. Schehr. Daphné de Marneffe.

Review :
Prize: A Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2010 Prize: A Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2010 … distinguished by both its intense focus and its wide-ranging vision… Highly recommended.’ Choice '... this is an impressive book offering a pleasing mix of essays on old favorites and on unfamiliar works whose time to share the limelight has surely come.' Nineteenth-Century French Studies