THE SENSE OF A BEGINNING: THEORY OF THE LITERARY OPENING A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Niels Buch Leander January 2012 © 2012 Niels Buch Leander THE SENSE OF A BEGINNING: THEORY OF THE LITERARY OPENING Niels Buch Leander, Ph.D. Cornell University 2012 This dissertation is the first comprehensive study in English of the literary opening and its impact on modern literary criticism. It thus fills an astounding gap in Anglo-American criticism, which has neglected openings and instead focused on endings, as exemplified by Frank Kermode‘s The Sense of an Ending (1967). Through a study of the constant formal challenges of novelistic openings, primarily during modernism, this dissertation illustrates the significance of the opening in literary creation and in literary criticism. Chapter 1 analyses how openings attempt to lend authority from natural beginnings as well as from cosmologies, which leads to the conclusion that the beginning of a story is also a story of the beginning. Chapter 2 examines literary openings more closely from a formal and narrative point of view, thereby outlining a theory of openings based on linguistic considerations such as pragmatic conventions and cooperative rules. The chapter establishes a taxonomy of openings based on five ―signals‖ of the opening. In particular, the chapter develops the concept of ―perspectival abruptness‖, which is to be differentiated from the temporal abruptness known as in medias res. ―Perspectival abruptness‖ is presented as a tool for the critic and the literary historian to understand the particular nature of modern fiction. Chapter 3 focuses on the modern opening and literature‘s higher sense of self- awareness. In particular, through discussions of notably Roland Barthes and Edward Said, the chapter investigates how the modern opening has transformed modern criticism through the concept of intertextuality. In chapter 4, Paul Valéry‘s mockery of the novelistic opening serves to illustrate more concretely the influence of intertextuality on literary openings. The epilogue expounds on the ideological schism between Anglo-American and French criticism with regard to literary openings. It concludes that openings can only be fully understood in their relations to linguistic and literary conventions. The dissertation includes an appendix that outlines the existing criticism on literary openings until today. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Niels Buch Leander (né Niels Buch-Jepsen) was born in Aarhus, Denmark in 1973 to Knud and Birte Buch-Jepsen. After attending high school at Aarhus Katedralskole, he went to Britain in 1994 to undertake a B.A. Honours in analytical philosophy at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. After his graduation in 1997, Niels was offered a place at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Fontenay-aux-Roses near Paris. During his two years at the E.N.S., he shifted his academic focus from philosophy to literature, first undertaking a D.E.A. in philosophical aesthetics at Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne, under the guidance of Professor Yves Michaud, and then a D.E.A. in French Literature at Paris IV-Sorbonne, under the guidance of Professor Antoine Compagnon. In 1999, Niels came to Cornell University, Ithaca, New York and received a M.A. in Comparative Literature in 2002. From 2001-02 he held a position as Research Associate at the University of Newcastle, England, working on Paul Valéry‘s private library with Professor Brian Stimpson and the C.N.R.S. After 11 years of expatriate life, Niels returned to Denmark in 2004 to take up a position as Assistant Research Professor at the University of Copenhagen due to an allowance from the Carlsberg Foundation. In 2008, he shifted career and currently works as a business consultant at NNIT in Copenhagen, specializing in regulatory consultancy to the life sciences industry. In August 2011, Niels defended this Ph.D.-dissertation at Cornell University. He has published various academic articles and book chapters, especially in the crosssection between subjectivist theory and literary theory. His publications are listed on page 218 of this dissertation. Niels is married to Else-Marie Buch Leander with whom he has two daughters Astrid and Sigrid. iii Dedicated to Else-Marie ―Geschrieben steht: ‗Im Anfang war das Wort!‘ Hier stock ich schon! Wer hilft mir weiter fort?‖ Goethe‘s Faust ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My sincerest gratitude goes to my special committee: Professor Jonathan Culler, Professor Richard Klein and Professor Harry Shaw, whom I am very proud to have worked with. Apart from being a tremendous support, Jonathan has always been a source of inspiration due to his remarkable critical clarity and his high standards when it comes to academic writing. I remember being in a Parisian library a late night back in 1998 before coming to Cornell, reading his Structuralist Poetics. After one year of intense exposure to the French theorists, whose themes I adored, but whose writing style I abhorred, I was struck by the fact that Jonathan managed to explain and present French theory in a logical and argumentative fashion that no Frenchman seemed capable of doing. In precisely this paradox I located my own intellectual identity, by being brought up in the argumentative logic of Cambridge philosophy, but exposed to the Parisian intellectual energy. I thank him for his lucidity and his availability, whether for a coffee on campus or for a bifsteak in a Parisian bistrot. I thank Richard, for his confidence in my theoretical take and his critical and social curiosity, and Harry for his unique combination of openness and solidity. My thanks also go to Professor Doug Mao who served on my committee during his time at Cornell University and to Professor Brian Stimpson who was my mentor during my stay in Newcastle and Paris in 2001-03, opening whole new aspects of the profession to my eyes. I am moreover grateful to all faculty members and co-students at Cornell who offered an unrivalled, intellectual and social community in Ithaca. I am particularly thinking of Dwight Codr, Meghan Freeman, Marlon Kuzmick, Will Hacker, Rob Odom, Brandon Harvey, Gabrielle McIntire, Ross Halvorsen, Marie-Louise Vierø, Svend Svenstrup and Dorian Stuber, but the list is indeed as v innumerable as all the good memories I have of my spell at Cornell. The always intense discussions and experiences evolving around Dwight were the highlights of this period. I am thankful to the Department of Comparative Literature as well as the Graduate School at Cornell University for providing me with excellent conditions for research as well as generous financial support over the years, including summer grants, travel grants, a ―Thanks to Scandinavia‖ Fellowship and a Mellon Completion Fellowship. Moreover, without the financial support from the Danish Research Academy, now under the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, this Ph.D. would not have been possible. I therefore thank the Agency as well as all the anonymous Danish taxpayers who unknowingly contributed to this research. I thank the University of Nebraska Press for the permission to use material from my book chapter ―To Begin with the Beginning‖ in chapter 1 of this dissertation, and I thank the Presses de l‘Université Laval for the permission to use a translated version of my book chapter ―L‘intertextualité de l‘incipit romanesque‖ as chapter 4 in this dissertation. Many friends have cheered me on during the long process of completing this dissertation. In addition to the Cornellians mentioned above, I thank Filippo de Vivo, Henrik Ø. Breitenbauch, Søren Peter Andreasen, James Anderson, Anya Serota, Catherine Lister, Pierre Grouix and Anders Hinsby for all their inspiring distractions. Special thanks to Filippo, my close comrade and academic co-worker, for his constancy and kind attention ever since those bewildering and wonderful undergraduate years. I thank him for all those long hours in various research libraries around the globe and for his generous reflections and enthusiasm. It is only natural to thank those who anticipated and participated in my own beginning, my parents, Knud and Birte Buch-Jepsen, whose tolerant, supportive attitude made it v uncomplicated to choose a graduate school 5000 kilometers from the farm of Bjørreshøjgård. Thanks also to my brothers Anders, Jens and Lars Buch-Jepsen for shaping and sharpening me in my childhood. My thoughts first and foremost go to my wife and the love of my life, Else-Marie Buch Leander. She is truly the one who influenced the writing process most concretely and convinced me to restructure the dissertation in its current shape. I thank her for her keen participation in all aspects of my life, and I look forward to also sharing my postdoctoral life with her and with our two wonderful daughters Astrid and Sigrid. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch ....................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... v List of Illustrations ........................................................................................................................ vii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii – PROLOGUE – How To Begin ...................................................................................................