Doctoral Degrees (Modern Foreign Languages)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Modern Foreign Languages) by Author "Staebler, Marie-Anne"

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    Reflets narcissiques dans l oeuvre de Jack-Alain Leger
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014-12) Staebler, Marie-Anne; Du Toit, Catherine; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Department of Modern Foreign Languages.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Jack-Alain Léger committed suicide on 17 July 2013 at the age of 66, leaving behind him a large amount of work that has not formed the object of any academic study, not even partially. Many articles have been written about the author but none about his novels. Léger was especially known for his multitude of pseudonyms, his manic-depressive tendencies, his conflicts with all his editors, his homosexuality, the controversy linked to the alias Paul Smaïl or for his Islamophobia, his hatred towards his biological father and towards an alleged brother who died before his birth but also for his literary talent, his wide erudition and his brilliant and provocative mind. Underneath these characteristics hides an author whose work, that appears incoherent at first sight, reflects a profound reflection on the aesthetic, the essence and the ultimate purpose of art. Although Léger’s art involves the domain of aestheticism, it is also intended to subvert and oppose a society that limits imagination and individual potential by imposing a uniform identity. In this way, Léger illustrates in all his works the separation and alienation of the self through the dead child motive, emphasizing his refusal to acknowledge having been born as an alienated self. Lost in the ambiguity of an image that had not been received by society, Léger wanders in the infinite game of mirrors like Narcissus searching for an ideal self and an ideal beauty in the lake’s waters where he gazes upon his reflection. In this multidisciplinary research, I will study the entirety of Léger’s work in the light of the notion of narcissism and the multiple reflections that it includes. The narcissistic force that serves as a fermenting agent for the creation of Léger’s work is developed through a literary, sociological, psychoanalytical and philosophical interpretation. The final chapter discusses the elements these different perspectives have in common and they are drawn together in the concept of tertiary narcissism, as a mechanism of self-protection and self-recreation which is, however, not without danger as revealed in the tale of Narcissus.