Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2011 The hegemony of language - literary writing and the quest for subjectivity in the works of Michel de Montaigne and Charles Ferdinand Ramuz Carla Bota Vance Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Vance, Carla Bota, "The hegemony of language - literary writing and the quest for subjectivity in the works of Michel de Montaigne and Charles Ferdinand Ramuz" (2011). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2430. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2430 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE HEGEMONY OF LANGUAGE -- LITERARY WRITING AND THE QUEST FOR SUBJECTIVITY IN THE WORKS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE AND CHARLES FERDINAND RAMUZ A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of French Studies by Carla Bota Vance B.A., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2005 December, 2011 “Sans doute y a-t-il à l’origine une certaine défiance envers le langage. Mais cette défiance, cette gêne, qui sont imposées à tant d’hommes de l’extrême périphérie du domaine linguistique français, il faudra savoir leur faire jouer un rôle salutaire.” Jean Starobinski Le « Contre » 19451 “One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland – and no other.” Emil Cioran Anathemas and Admirations, 19872 1 Jean Starobinski, Le «Contre» in Lettres, numéro 6. (Genève: Cailler, 1945), 97. 2 Emil Cioran, Anathemas and Admirations. (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1998). Acknowledgements I would like to thank my dissertation advisor, Professor Alexandre Leupin, who, from the early days of my coming into the French department, has always stimulated my thoughts and my interests. Professor Leupin has always been there for me, offering me either professional advice or helping me through personal matters, frequently showing more confidence in me than I myself have had at times. I would also like to thank Professor Leupin for introducing me to the fascinating thought of Jacques Lacan and to the wonderful worlds of Charles Ferdinand Ramuz and Marcel Proust. Since discovering Proust with Professor Leupin I have gained a true friend and companion. Professor Leupin is a genuine mentor for he has planted a seed and allowed me to nurture and cultivate it, while always lightly guiding me in the right direction. Professors Pius Ngandu and Jack Yeager have always encouraged and supported me, and their classes have been such fulfilling experiences. They are invaluable to me and to our department. Their comments and suggestions for this dissertation project have been greatly appreciated. I would like to equally thank Professor Kevin Risk, who, as my Dean’s Representative, has allowed me to see the possible tangents my dissertation project could reach. I am also indebted to Professor Greg Stone for the support he has always provided me, not only in the dissertation process and in his courses, but also in giving me the opportunity to work as the assistant for our LSU in the French Alps Summer Study Abroad Program. Through this program I have come into contact with individuals and have engaged in experiences I would not otherwise have had the opportunity to pursue. Working with Bernard Dubernet and with our wonderful undergraduate students has ii changed me for the better and reaffirmed my passion for teaching. I am more than grateful for this opportunity. I am equally indebted to the entire French Department for the support they have provided me since coming to LSU. I would also like to express my appreciation to my parents and to my friends for their encouragement and constant support for they have always been with me. Special thanks go to my best friend and editor, Julie Steinecker, who has spent countless hours improving this project. Equal thanks go to Matthew Steinecker for his editorial help. Finally, I could not have accomplished this venture without the love, care and patience of my husband, Kurt Vance, who has shared my journey step by step. Thank you to all! iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements................................................................................................. ii Abstract....................................................................................................................v Introduction..............................................................................................................1 “Postcolonialism” ........................................................................................7 “Postcolonialism” – Plurality of Meaning...................................................8 “Francophone” – Meaningful Pluralities...................................................25 The French Language – History, Formation, Conflicts.............................29 Chapter 1 – Michel de Montaigne .........................................................................46 Situating Montaigne – the Renaissance Shift ............................................49 “De l’Amitié” ............................................................................................57 Montaigne’s Conflicted Rapport with Latin and Antiquity.......................75 Yet Another Conflict – Gascon and French ..............................................86 “Des Cannibales” .....................................................................................98 Concluding Remarks ...............................................................................117 Chapter 2 – Charles Ferdinand Ramuz................................................................120 Ramuz’ Environment...............................................................................125 La Voile latine and Cahiers vaudois - between National Identity and the Canton ...........................................133 Raison d’être............................................................................................139 Lettre à Bernard Grasset.........................................................................152 Concluding Remarks ...............................................................................162 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................165 References............................................................................................................170 Vita .................................................................................................................177 iv Abstract Starting from the premise that one’s identity is first and foremost construed in language, this dissertation argues that language is the fundamental site of resistance for writers who define themselves through linguistic difference. Recognizing also that language and literary production frequently fall under the control of complex authorities, this thesis examines literature as a site where confrontation is played out aesthetically. Literary writing, in other words, is exposed as a point of intersection between writers whose language draws its sources from a peripheral location and the centers of authority that regulate and dictate what is accepted as artistically and culturally valuable. Read as such, at the core of literary writing, we find nothing less than the Self and the Other engaged in a competing struggle for affirmation. The two authors considered in this study are Michel de Montaigne and Charles Ferdinand Ramuz. By going as far back in history as the French Renaissance and then shifting focus to the Swiss Francophone, this project explores historical processes and literary creation from the viewpoint of relationships of hegemony and resistance that call to mind the conceptual definitions of postcolonial theory. Reading Michel de Montaigne and Charles Ferdinand Ramuz through a postcolonial theoretical lens, this dissertation reveals that power dynamics, imbalanced power relations, and struggles over cultural control can be discerned in other settings than those most frequently associated with postcolonial theory. v Introduction As Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin advance in their influential collection The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, “language provides the terms by which the world may be ‘known’. Its system of values – its suppositions, its geography, its concept of history, of difference, its myriad gradation of distinction – becomes the system upon which social, economic and political discourses are grounded.”3 Language also provides the terms by which individual identity is construed, for – if we agree with the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan – the site of subjectivity, of selfhood, is none other than language. Through language we also discover that selfhood is plural and always constituted in relation to a fundamental alterity. For this reason, literary writing can be read as the point of intersection between the Self and the Other,4 as a field of confrontation