Into the Abyss: a Study of the Mise En Abyme
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Into the Abyss: A Study of the mise en abyme Dr Marcus Snow PhD Written work put forward in fulfilment for the Doctor of Philosophy degree at London Metropolitan University under the kind backing of the Vice Chancellor’s PhD Scholarship Supervisors: Professor Emeritus Wendy Wheeler, Mr Jim Grant, Dr Megan Stern, Dr Martin Murray 2016 Declarations I, Marcus Snow, hereby take oath that this write-up of approximately 84 000 words in length, including all footnotes, introductions, conclusions (but excluding appendices and bibliography) have all been written by me, that this is a deed of work carried out by me in reckoning with London Metropolitan University’s guidelines of good academic conduct and that this written work has not been put forward in any earlier, former bid for another higher degree at another awarding school of learning or other learning body. The recordings in this thesis are my own copyright as are all images which are either my own or are in the public domain. I was acknowledged as research student in December 2009 and as a Vice Chancellor Scholar for the degree of MPhil in May 2010, and subsequently as a candidate for PhD research, under the oversight of Dr Megan Stern, Dr Martin Murray, Professor Wendy Wheeler and Mr Jim Grant. The advanced study, of which this written work is set forth, was followed through at London Metropolitan University between 2009 and 2015. Under the financial backing of the Vice Chancellor Doctorate Programme, I have done well and seen through the in-school teaching requirements and come to belong, as member, to the Associated Fellowship with The Higher Education Academy in UK. (2012) Date_______________ June 2016 Signature of Candidate____Marcus Snow Mise en abyme: a French expression originally used in heraldry to describe a small shield within a larger shield bearing the same device. In English the smaller shield is said to be ‘set in escutcheon’; the expression is used only in heraldry. Equivalent formal devices have long been used in both literature and the visual arts…The expression mise-en-abyme was given a new currency by the French novelist André Gide (1869-1951) who defined it as the representation within a work of art of that work’s structure…mise-en-abyme is frequently associated with the nouveau roman, and a similar self-reflexivity is typical of much postmodernist fiction… (Macey, 2001: 256) [2] Mise en abyme: (French ‘put in the abyss’) A term for a self-reflexive repetition in a text. …The term also suggests infinite regression, such as the design which used to appear on the Quaker Oats packet, on which there was a picture of a man holding a Quaker Oats packet, and so on. The term has been taken up in deconstructive criticism for the occasional glimpses of the ‘solving emptiness’ that underlies the endless free-play of meanings in words, the revelations of an abyss of nothingness which is constantly covered and uncovered by the signs themselves. (Gray, 1992: 181) Mise en abyme: Term from heraldry, meaning the reduced reproduction of an image within itself. It was popularised by Gide to refer to a similar phenomenon in literature. (France, 1995: 532) Mise-en-abyme/ mise en abîme: A concept taken from art theory, referring to the inset-frame structure. A frame and its inset can be called a mise-en-abyme structure if the framed element shows points of similarity to the frame. In narrative, one can speak of mise-en-abyme if an embedded story shares plot elements, structural features or themes with the main story and this makes it possible to correlate plot and subplot. (Fludernik, 2009: 156) There is no term in English for what French critics call a mise en abîme—a casting into the abyss—but the effect itself is familiar enough: an illusion of infinite regress can be created by a writer or painter by incorporating within his own work a work that duplicates in miniature the larger structure, setting up an apparently unending series. (Neil Hertz, 1979 in Patricia Lawlor, 1985) A “mise en abyme”: a series of apparently endlessly overlapping, enclosed networks of conceptual or structural spaces which form a kind of labyrinth leading to a shifting, ever- unattainable nucleus or centre. (Cardwell, 1989: 271) Mise en abyme. From the French meaning, literally, to throw into the abyss. The term is adapted from heraldry, and in its adapted form generally involves the recurring internal duplication of images of an artistic whole, such that an infinite series of images disappearing into invisibility is produced—similar to what one witnesses if one looks at one’s reflection between two facing mirrors. (Hawthorne, 1998: 138) In the field of literary criticism, André Gide borrowed from heraldry the term mise en abyme to define the property of certain paintings in which a convex mirror reflects the scene in the picture, or the fictions in which a text-within-the-text echoes the main narrative. An equivalent phenomenon has been of late found by mathematicians to characterise the structure of edges and surfaces in objects of the natural world, nowadays studied in terms of fractals. (Bloom, 2007; 228) …images-within-images, where the work includes its own representation, is called mise en abyme. The heraldic term en abyme was originally introduced by André Gide to denote self-reference in literature and in the visual arts… (Bokody, 2015: 14) Mise en abyme, French for ‘put into the abyss’, is the miniature replication of the whole within some portion of it, a device that therefore reveals the constructedness [sic] of mediation (visual or textual). Clichéd uses of it include the picture of someone holding a picture depicting the same scene ad infinitum. (Chaney, 2011: 39, n1) [3] Abstract As no single English study of the mise en abyme with its examples in our late-modern world has been undertaken, this thesis concerns the mise en abyme in English literature. In approximately the last third of the twentieth century, the concept has increasingly been associated with ‘postmodernism’ and the essential groundlessness of all claims to general or universal truth. In this thesis, I argue that the mise en abyme has become such a broad staple of character and narrative study that its meaning is diffuse in the extreme. First celebrated in the 1980s and 1990s, by several literary thinkers as a figure capturing the spirit of postmodernism, the eventual symptomatic dissipation of the mise en abyme in literary studies resulted from critical suggestions that the mise en abyme was after all, perhaps, bogus. It subsequently became associated with aesthetic phenomena far beyond its initial characterisation by André Gide in 1893. I argue that it has now become a trope of things wider than Gide’s initial allusion and has become a metaphor for abyssal—and abysmal—things. This thesis seeks to consider the history of the mise en abyme and to offer a contemporary account of what it might mean: it does this by uncovering the latent rhetorical figures which preceded the name ‘mise en abyme’. Formal readings of the play within the play in Hamlet and the gothic story read in The Fall of the House of Usher are both starting points to relink Gide’s idea to its, more common, metaphorical applications. Thus, metaphors of the abyss, the dark, the occulted, the uncanny and, most precisely, the ‘sinister’ are examined in this dissertation. The thesis first evaluates the theoretical inheritance of Gide’s work and then, in the second part, applies, through close reading, the meaning of Gide’s idea to recent, and representative literary examples. The thrust of the argument is that the reason many definitions, and applications, of the mise en abyme are such a source of problems, is because the mise en abyme, as an English literary phenomenon supporting the broad thesis of postmodern Gothic aesthetics, is concerned with representing abyssal metaphors. A clear delimitation of the mise en abyme is difficult whenever connotations of the abyss, the dark, the occult and the sinister are overlooked. So, this dissertation gives a circumspect view of what is designated as mise en abyme, and argues that, in late- modernity, its meaning is closest to the rhetorical figures named ekphrasis, metalepsis, and epanalepsis. This study concludes that, realistically, there is probably no such thing as the mise en abyme and instead, there are only rhetorical figures and metaphors of the sinister and of the abyss. [4] Acknowledgements I have worked on this thesis for so long now that I will not be able to thank everyone with whom I have exchanged ideas and received help. The Vice Chancellor of London Metropolitan University I thank first for awarding me the VC doctoral scholarship to research this topic. For expert advice about editing, and their encouragement, I thank Professor Philip Tew and Professor Mark Currie. Dr Megan Stern, I also thank for encouragement during my time as an MRes student. My mentor, Professor Wendy Wheeler stuck by me when things remained continuously disruptive. Dr Martin Murray stepped in at the last minute, for a year, he was very gracious in helping with philosophy problems and making arrangements. Jim Grant, who in particular, was indispensably helpful, offered enlightened guidance and friendship in how to revise my work in literature and philosophy. My gratitude acknowledges his input on nearly every page. Professor Anna Gough-Yates helped much with teaching arrangements. I am indebted to my undergraduate students who challenged me to think clearly about ideas in the arts. Dr Caroline Macaffee read my work and offered helpful insight. I am grateful to colleagues in departments at Heathfield School, especially Julie Dance, Su Mei Kong, Tristan Pithers, Juliette Roubieu, Gareth Benjamin and friendly Kelly O’Brien.