NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
La Vengeance Nostre Seigneur et son rayonnement dans le manuscrit de Paris, BnF, fr. 1553

The Vengeance Nostre Seigneur is an epic poem written around 1200 which depicts Jerusalem’s destruction in 70 AD by Vespasian and Titus as a vengeance for the Crucifixion. It is now known in ten manuscripts, all of them miscellanies, given its relative brevity (1200 to 3400 verses, depending on the redaction). This text has a peculiar behavior in some of the manuscripts where it is kept: the story of Christ’s vengeance appears in other texts in which we would not expect its manifestation. The purpose of this study is twofold: on one hand, to understand how the medieval collection is thought, built and conceived, from the manuscript of Paris, BnF, fr. 1553; and on the other hand, to evaluate the role the Vengeance Nostre Seigneur played in the composition of the manuscripts that hosts it. After analysing the medieval miscellany in general, and more specifically the Paris, BnF, fr. 1553 collection, the study will focus on the Vengeance Nostre Seigneur to position it on the medieval literary scene (study of the sources, generic analysis, circulation context). The goal will be to demonstrate the role it played in the Paris, BnF, fr. 1553 manuscript and to understand the phenomenon of unexpected presence of the legend in other texts of this collection. There will then be a study of the same phenomenon in two very different manuscripts that both occupy an important place in the tradition; the manuscripts of Paris, BnF, fr. 1374 and Turin, BNU, L.II.14. Finally, the three copies of the text will be compared to determine if these three redactions represent precisely the same story.

Keyphrases: tradition manuscrite, Avenging of Christ, Medieval miscellany, Manuscript tradition, Epic poem
La Sociétose suivi de L’illusion du média en direct dans Les Sorcières de la République de Chloé Delaume

This project offers an analysis of the feminist and memorial dystopia  Les Sorcières de la République, a novel by Chloé Delaume focusing on a live media broadcast staged by the author. Our goal will be to determine what effect this illusion can produce in the static format of a book, as was our scriptural intention with La Sociétose, a short anticipatory novel presented in this essay. Among others, the philosophers Giorgio Agamben and Tzvetan Todorov, will guide our reflection, in the first case, on what we supposed to be the critical intentions of Chloé Delaume, towards contemporary institutions, in a goal of denunciation by profanation. In a second section underlining language strategies, the Bulgarian critic Todorov will show us how magic speech intervene in the course of the central characters. Our creative project joins Les Sorcières of Chloé Delaume in many ways. La Sociétose tells the story of an anthropolinguist, Milénia Bernard, known worldwide for having created an inclusive language. For no apparent reason the government appoints Milénia, in 2067, to manage a high-level state organization intended to eradicate this language. Throughout the story, this contradictory character will be the subject of a series of special live programs in the context of fiery linguistic debates while a riot is to be prepared by fanatics. The two stories, La Sociétose an Les Sorcières complete each other in our research and creation work

Keyphrases: Chloé Delaume, Sorcières, Dystopia, Media, Language issue
Médiation(s) de la mort : imaginaire du soi malade et mourant dans l'oeuvre d'Hervé Guibert

The works of Hervé Guibert, French author, photographer and journal, are well-known for the intimate and complex writing of his experience with seropositivity in the midst of the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s and 1990s. Following the publication of À l’ami qui ne m’a pas sauvé la vie (1990), he rapidly gained fame and became of the France’s best-known figures of AIDS literature. His line of work is coherent and homogenous in its themes: Guibert elaborates a complex thought on image and death that spans through his first publication, La Mort propagande (1977), at twenty one years old, all the way through the end of his life, evidently transformed by his illness.  All throughout his work, Hervé Guibert creates an imaginary of the ill and dying self that overlaps the literary and visual parts of his works. Under the perspective of intermediality, this the-sis will analyze how this fictionalized version of the self unfolds in L’image fantôme (1981), Cy-tomégalovirus (1992), Le Protocole compassionnel (1993) and Le mausolée des Amants (2001). Hervé Guibert’s work can be seen as a true exploration of the possible mediation(s) of death. Through literary fiction, images and a transhistoric filiation with the Judeo-Christian tradition, his works attempt to create sense from the condemnation.

Keyphrases: Hervé Guibert, Mort, French literature, AIDS, Death, Illness, Intermediality, Image
Meursault, contre-enquête de Kamel Daoud et L’Étranger de Camus : réappropriation et détournements dans le récit littéraire contemporain

Abstract A true story of parentage, Meursault, a counter-investigation is by Kamel Daoud, an Algerian columnist and writer of French expression. He prolongs and transgresses the fictional universe of Camus’s The Stranger from the point of view of the Arab. Published by Barzakh editions in Algeria, the novel receives the Goncourt Prize for the first novel in 2015. In Camus’s novel, Meursault shoots an Arab on a beach in Alger. The victim has no identity and remains anonymous; Camus’s text does not attribute any agency to it. Daoud’s novel is born from what is interpreted as an injustice by Haroun, brother of the murdered Arab and narrator of the story which will, from then on, avow a duty of commemoration and rehabilitation while being part of a reflection of contemporary Algeria. In this thesis, we examine in the first chapter the different theoretical processes, namely intertextuality, transtextuality and transfictionality which allow us to understand how Kamel Daoud stages the path that Haroun follows, on the model of the palimpsest, to say the History/the history of his family, his moods and to expose the problem of Algerian identity and its tumultuous relationship with the colonial past. In the second chapter, we see by what means Daoud extends Camus’s novel through the invention of a character and the restructuring of places and events. Finally, the last chapter looks at the ideological and political significance of Daoud’s work and what it implies as postcolonial reading and rewriting of the camusian work.

Keyphrases: Albert Camus, Kamel Daoud, Intertextuality, Transtextuality, Transfictionality, Identity, Alterity, Postcolonial literature
Identités de Claude Cahun : étude de l’héritage juif dans les textes et les images

In this thesis, we will explore the presence that Claude Cahun’s Jewish heritage has on her literary and pictorial works as well as on the construction of her identity. Firstly, we evoke theories of identity, more precisely of Jewish identity, to then analyze unique and particular Jewish traces in the works of the author-artist. We essentially analyze fragments of Aveux non avenus, all the while completing our reflection with peripheral texts. These excerpts show the influence of the Jewish tradition and the conflictual relationship that the author maintained with her religious and philosophical heritage. Through a precise and detailed analysis of the expression of her Jewishness, we attempt to highlight important evidence of these traditions in the Cahunian identity construction as well as in the developments of her work. Through the study of her texts, we can discern certain lineaments building to an aesthetic: that of “becoming”, of the perpetual metamorphosis. We note that the idea of “becoming” is the founding of Claude Cahun’s Jewishness, and in this thesis, we aim to demonstrate its importance. Secondly, we insist on the critical relationship kept by the author with the society on which she writes, whose customs and ideas are extremely influenced by religious dogmas. We highlight the virulent denunciations established by the analysis of specific scriptural strategies such as parody rewriting and misappropriation of biblical texts.

Keyphrases: photomontages, twentieth century French literature, womens writing, identity, Judaism, religious studies, philosophy, diversions
L'illumineuse, suivi de «La claque de feu monumentale» : mysticisme et féminisme dans La pérégrin chérubinique de Jovette Marchessault

L’illumineuse is a play built around the heritage of Quebec writer Jovette Marchessault. The text, which is both a tribute and an initiation story, focuses on the relationship between reader and fiction, the experience of writing, as well as the artistic legacy of feminism. We hope that L’illumineuse is able to travel through and celebrate the work of Marchessault, as characters and words from her own writings are transposed into a new and original setting, creating a dynamic exploration of intertextuality. The play’s story happens all in one night, in the huis clos of a students’ apartment, in which an anxious young writer will have the visits of the “legendary women” (Anne Hébert, Anaïs Nin, Violette Leduc, etc.) coming from Marchessault’s own plays. The essay La “claque de feu monumentale”: mysticism et féminisme dans La pérégrin chérubinique de Jovette Marchessault, is about Marchessault’s last published text and its mystical tone, which is respectful of tradition and, at the same time, highly vindicative. First, we identify the textual mechanisms which support the mystical aspect of La pérégrin chérubinique. Then, we analyse the theatrical performances of the text by the director and performer Pol Pelletier, in order to question the staging of mysticism. By reflecting on textual and theatrical media, the essay aims to explore the ways in which the sacred is conveyed by art, as well as the feminist subversions of La pérégrin chérubinique.

Keyphrases: Jovette Marchessault, Pol Pelletier, féminisme, mysticism, feminism, intertextuality, Quebec theater, creative writing
L'écriture de la post-mémoire dans La femme qui fuit d'Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, suivi de La cartographie de l'absence

This master’s thesis is subdivided in two components : an essay and a novel. The essay focuses on postmemory, a concept elaborated in relation to historical traumas, as intimate memorial structure. The research shifts from historical traumas to personal traumas by basing their similarity on their event nature. The novel Suzanne by Anaïs Barbeau- Lavalette underlines the importance of postmemory in familial trauma. This story, fictionalized by linking true artefacts, sheds light on postmemorial work and on the resignification of events orchestrated by the post-generation of a traumatic event. The creation section of this work tells the story of a hypochondriac narrator who suffered the loss of her mother to breast cancer in childhood. The main character seeks to recover the lost memories of her mother but can only remember her by means of her imagination – only the child narrator still possesses the true memories. However, as the young girl no longer exists in the present time, the quest stumbles. Through the search for her mother, the narrator mostly uncovers her father’s and her own ghosts. The creative work attempts to embody the postmemory theory while questioning its limits.

Keyphrases: mémoire, filiation, survivance, Memory, Postmemory, Trauma, Quebec literature, History
L’affirmation de soi au détriment de l’autre dans le théâtre de Fabien Cloutier : analyse de Scotstown, Billy (Les jours de hurlement) et Bonne retraite, Jocelyne

This memoir argues that self-affirmation in Fabien Cloutier’s theatre is made at the expense of or even against others. I will verify this theory through the analysis of the plays Scotstown, Billy (The Days of Howling) and Bonne retraite, Jocelyne. I will begin from the idea that nowadays, the affirmation of identity goes hand in hand with the principles of “gap” and “difference”, which were developed by François Jullien in his essay Il n’y a pas d’identité culturelle. In many theories, identity and alterity are intrinsically linked. They even go as far as to oppose identity and alterity. Within the collective imaginary and in Fabien Cloutier’s dramatic universe, the notion of alterity implies a strongly negative connotation. However, the strength of Cloutier’s plays lies in them going beyond the simple fact that the self is confronted to others. Instead, they undergo the transition from François Jullien’s “difference” system to the one of “gap”. The “difference” system implies a vertical relationship, or in other words one of superiority. The “gap” system implies a horizontal relationship, where the two entities that make it up are taken for what they are, for what links them together and what separates them, without one serving as a model or as a point of comparison to the other. To identify and analyse expressions of self-affirmation and their effects on others, as they are notable in the three works of the corpus, I will focus on the enunciation modalities and the nature of dialogism as Hervé Guay defines them. Finally, I will attempt to demonstrate how Scotstown, Billy (The Days of Howling) and Bonne retraite, Jocelyne denounce the tendency to depreciate others in order to better empower oneself, as well as how these plays attempt to change the notion of alterity.

Keyphrases: XXIe siècle, Fabien Cloutier, identité, 21st century, contemporary Québec theatre, identity, alterity
Le Survenant : la figure du fuyard hors-la-loi dans la littérature québécoise contemporaine en milieu rural

Dedicated to the study of two contemporary novels, La liberté des détours (2015) by Mathieu Blais and Dixie (2013) by William S. Messier, this thesis examines the presence of a transformed, even deconstructed, regionality in Quebec's literary imagination. To do so, it examines these fictitious places in light of the revival of the figure of the Survenant, imagined by Germaine Guèvremont in 1945. The first chapter presents the figure of the nomad, from the tales of history to the rural novel, to reflect on its evolution. It then explores Guèvremont's innovative conception of Le Survenant through textual analysis. The second chapter focuses on Francis Langevin's definition of regionality, based on the needs of the primary corpus of this study. It is a novel way of reflecting on their filiations to the topos of the foreigner in rural areas, and more specifically to the dichotomy between “inhabitant” and “foreigner” imposed by terroirist literature. The method used for the analysis of the texts is inspired by the theories of intextextuality, hypertextuality and narratology. Finally, the third chapter examines the intertextual themes of freedom and heritage in contemporary novels, which adopt a “rural trash” aesthetic characterized by a refusal of idealization, as Mathieu Arsenault defines it. As a result, the Survenant, idealized in Guèvremont's novel, is transformed into the figure of outlaw fugitives in La liberté des détours and Dixie.

Keyphrases: Le Survenant, La liberté des détours, Dixie, Contemporary Quebec literature, Intertextuality, Narratology
Manières de voir et d’être vue : l’impact des regards télévisuels dans Acide sulfurique d’Amélie Nothomb et Les Sorcières de la République de Chloé Delaume

Since George Orwell’s 1984 (1949), television and the (panoptic and synoptic) gazes that it generates have been a leitmotif of dystopian fiction. In the dystopian novels Acide sulfurique (2005) by Amélie Nothomb and Les Sorcières de la République (2016) by Chloé Delaume, they play a central role. By imposing a way of seeing through the framing of the camera and by transmitting the filmed content to an unlimited number of viewers, televisual gazes are responsible for the horrible treatment of the protagonists. The heroines, Pannonique and Sybille, are exposed without consent on the screens of fellow citizens who are entertained by their misfortunes.  The works by the two authors examined both critique, each in their own way, the “society of the spectacle” (Guy Debord, 1967) that television encourages. From an intermedial and a feminist perspective, this research analyses the televisual gazes’ contamination of the novel that occurs through the portrayal of the female characters, but also through the form of the works themselves. Firstly, it seems that they have a significant effect on the protagonists, since they are judged by the viewers according to their appearance and because their sex conditions the image assigned to them (the witch, the virgin, the lover, etc.). However, the impact of televisual gazes is not limited to the intrigue of the novels : they also contaminate the form, structure and narration of the works. Acide sulfurique and Les Sorcières de la République appear as “screening books” inviting readers to adopt a viewer’s role and hosting televisual gazes like a virus, all while fighting them from the inside.

Keyphrases: Chloé Delaume, Amélie Nothomb, Novels of the contemporary extreme, Dystopia, Intermadiality, Media devices, Feminism, Gazes
La Ceinture des Parques ; suivi de Neuf gouttes contre l’incendie : le ressassement textuel dans La petite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes

La Ceinture des Parques engages in a deadly dialogue with sea level rise. Focusing on the invisible and pragmatic hardships of that natural phenomenon, this post-apocalyptic fiction dives into the daily psychological suffering haunting those who live behind the dikes and wait in helplessness. Two survivors of the global submergence embody the idea that, when facing the oceanic invader, the worst is not in the storms but in what lies between them. The story then aims to turn the reader into a watcher.  It thus takes the page as a wall and the text as its flaw: every letter is a gash in the dam, a crack into which a threatening drop might seep. Through these rifts, the sea reshapes the language, erasing any rigidity in the words, imposing the rhythm of its waves that absorb the usual limits of writing to model them on the constant instability that defines coastline and tides. The more the text is developed, the more it condemns itself to be dissolved, letting the water come into the text to achieve a complete blend when the endings of the narrator, of its language and of the environment mix in a common dilution.  Neuf Gouttes is an essay exploring the hidden textual network spread by a narrator’s repetition and rumination. An enigmatic novel, La petite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes accumulates many frequent phrases throughout 200 pages. These similar words are trivial at first glance, but through them Gaétan Soucy’s text offers an alternate textual dynamic that differs according to the reader’s pragmatic cooperation level. The textual rumination stands out as the main force of the story, used by the narrator to adjust her writing speed in order to reach a safe balance between two converging endings: a material one and a psychological one. Between these two threats that get closer at each sentence, Alice Soissons must solve her family’s mystery before the writing becomes impossible, but also avoid rushing and crashing her testimony in an emotional explosion. The main goal of this essay is to analyse this paradox in which the plot uses reverses as the best way to make progress until its solving.

Keyphrases: Soucy, La petite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes, monologue, Rumination, Environment, Ecology, Apocalyptic, Language
'Tous les pauvres ne sont pas terroristes, heureusement!' : le procès du néolibéralisme dans la trilogie Vernon Subutex de Virginie Despentes

Founded on the basis of "sociocritique", this thesis aims to study how neoliberalism is present in the Vernon Subutex trilogy written by Virginie Despentes. The analysis reveals on the one hand the standardization of the textual space, which is reduced to an opposition between cities and peripheries, and on the other hand the standardization of the textual time caused by the enforcement of the laws of the market, which causes the abolition of the distinction between working time - production - and leisure time - consumption. This deletion is more fully explored by studying the text's permanent insistence on the rooting and stabilization of attention economy. The thesis highlights the consequences of these transformations on the society of the novel: the disappearance of social safety nets, the atomization of a society abandoned to individuals' private interest, the normalization of systemic social and institutional violence, as well as the blurring of the border between the private and the public due to an instrumentalization of cognitive processes, intimacy, affects, and individual and collective identities. The analysis thus brings to the fore the teleological dimension of the current historical conjuncture. It also intends to demonstrate the liminality of Vernon Subutex, the eponymous character of the trilogy and the core of the textual genesis around which revolve a multitude of marginal characters. The "mise en texte" (Duchet) of the novels' characters is such that it captures a moment of the historical becoming of the social, the economical and the cultural, as well as it identifies the crucial role of the symbolic motif of the threshold in the poetics of the novel.

Keyphrases: Virginie Despentes, Vernon Subutex, Sociocritique, French literature, Neoliberalism, Attention economy, Liminar character (liminality)
Ktf ; suivi de, La culture populaire et le rire comme instruments de détournement des discours dominants et de la culture consacrée dans Borderline et La brèche de Marie-Sissi Labrèche

Ktf, the first part of this M.A. Thesis, is a narrative that attempts to reproduce the  orality of young people in Quebec. It presents a vision of love relationships in the age of  new technologies through the eyes of a 20-years-old girl suffering from emotional  dependence. The discourse is coupled with a reflection on indoctrination by social  discourses that give great importance to appearing. The narrator, from her sarcastic and  alienated point of view, dwells on her banal daily life, while reiterating a multitude of  stereotypes and while gleefully pumping into kitsch repertoire and preconceived thoughts.  However, thanks to her sense of self-deprecation, the narrator infuses her story with a good  dose of ridicule, which has the effect of revealing the meaninglessness that underlies this  culture of appearances.  The second part is an essay on popular culture and laughter as instruments for  diverting dominant discourses and consecrated culture in Borderline and La brèche by  Marie-Sissi Labrèche. This three-part essay focuses first on highlighting references to  tragedy in the author's two narratives, in order to show how their heroines Sissi and Kiki  are oppressed by the great rhetoric of the official system. Then, parts two and three analyze  how Labrèche turns away the tragic by confronting it with various manifestations of comic  popular culture, including kitsch, grotesque, ridiculous, carnivalesque and trash.

Keyphrases: Marie-Sissi Labrèche, kitsch, grotesque, trash, Contemporary Quebec narrative, Tragic, Kitsch, Carnival, Trash, Popular culture, Comic, Orality