Origins of the Project > First Symposium (23rd June 2023): 'Authors as Characters in Fiction'

First Symposium

©️ Nathalie Collé

In his paper entitled ‘Regency Reappropriations: Stephanie Barron’s Jane Austen Mysteries’, Matthew Smith (Université de Lorraine) first sought to examine the strange mixture of respect and irreverence that has surrounded the figure of Jane Austen ever since the second half of the nineteenth century. Much to the horror of twentieth-century critics like F. R. Leavis, who sought to inscribe Austen within a 'Great Tradition' of 'moral seriousness', Austen has almost always been the object of a kind of cult, thereby maintaining multiple relationships with her readers from beyond the grave, ranging from the literary and academic to what we would now call a ‘pop culture’ kind of status. Matthew then focused on Barron’s precise approach, in particular on her virtuoso rendering of the Austenian voice, while scattering 'easter eggs' throughout the narratives for the initates of all natures, whether academic or Janeite cultist (or both simultaneously). Matthew then questioned the genre of Barron’s Jane Austen Mysteries series. A 2023 interview between Barron and Lauren Willig distances the series from ‘chick-lit’ reappropriations, but it is difficult to deny that the experience of reading these novels is that of a joyful postmodern medley of register, from meticulously researched historical, academic or biographical detail on the one hand, to passages that shamelessly very much do go full-on chick lit or sundry forms of sensationalism. The answer to the question of how to read these enigmatic productions may lie in heteroglossia and a very particular form of postmodernism – and perhaps in the legacy of the cults and cultures that surround Austen.

©️ Nathalie Collé

In her paper entitled ‘Oscar représenté, Wilde falsifié ? La biofiction ou la vérité des masques’, Doriane Nemes (Université de Lorraine) sought to explore the extent to which the recycling of Wilde in contemporary fiction is ultimately misleading or indeed falsifies the truth, in that it blurs the boundaries between the real and the fictional, but also between high art and popular culture, notably through the commodification of Wilde’s aestheticism, elitist by nature. If biofiction may be questionable because of its lack of veracity and authenticity and, consequently, because of its deceptiveness, Doriane’s paper approached the genre of biofiction through the prism of Wilde’s own theories on the motif of the mask, with a view to demonstrating that, far from erasing historical ‘truth’, Wildean biofictions bring to light new truths about their authors and the periods in which they were produced. Moreover, more than the truth of masks, biofiction appears to unveil the different masks worn by the notion of truth itself and, in the case of Wilde, to highlight and sustain the author’s multifaceted and kaleidoscopic nature through the plural representations that biofiction offers up.

©️ Nathalie Collé

After a short coffee break, Bruno Mancini (Université de Lorraine) shifted the focus to the Italian-speaking world with a paper entitled ‘Dante détective: le génie et l’homme à l’œuvre’. Bruno sought to examine the enthusiasm generated by Florentine Sommo Poeta Dante Alighieri through the study of Giulio Leoni’s Trilogia fiorentina. In his gialli (historical detective novels), where fiction mixes with history, Giulio Leoni creates a detective Dante that no one could have ever imagined. His hero possesses all the attributes of a genius, allowing him to solve the horrible crimes perpetrated in a surprising medieval Florence. The originality of Dante’s portrayal lies in the humaneness of the protagonist. The result is that the reader grows attached to this ‘nuovo Dante’, who is dark, angry, violent, unfaithful and vicious, but incredibly humane. In the ‘Inferno’ of his hometown, he has been entrusted with a mission and, as Prior of Florence, he has to accomplish it.

©️ Nathalie Collé

Then, William McKenzie (Université Catholique de l’Ouest) gave a paper entitled ‘Writing in Will’s Name: Charactering and Characterisation in Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Mr. W. H., Anthony Burgess’s Nothing Like the Sun, and Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet’. William sought to explore four responses to Juliet’s question, ‘What’s in a name?’ The texts analysed all evoke Shakespeare’s name, and also adopt the poet’s perspective; their authors therefore also write in his name. These onomastic issues go hand in hand with issues pertaining to the relationship between ‘character’ and ‘characterisation’. During the Renaissance, the verb ‘character’ designated the act of inscribing a legal identity on a document, while the noun ‘character’ corresponded to a letter or number. In contrast, the verb ‘characterise’ and its noun form ‘characterisation’ – which only appeared after Shakespeare’s death – refer to the description of an individual or a personality. Wilde’s The Portrait of Mr. W. H. describes the risks of imposing one ‘character’ on two ‘characters’. The Petrarchan tradition from which Shakespeare drew for his Sonnets also focuses on the evocative powers of names. In Nothing Like the Sun, the narrator finds the name Fatima in acrostic form in sonnet 147, and uses this discovery to identify the addressee of sonnets 127 and 130.

©️ Nathalie Collé

Then, in her paper entitled ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur-personnage? Virginia Woolf en français’, Anne-Laure Rigeade (Université Paris Est Créteil) examined the five characteristics of the author-character. As she explained, an author can appear as a character in their own works through metalepsis. The author-character can also appear in biofiction, in which case they are immediately identified through the use of their proper name. Moreover, according to Anne-Laure Rigeade, turning an author into a character means entering into a dialogue with their works and giving them a place in the biofiction in which they appear. Three different degrees can then be identified: the absence of the author's work, its mention, or the suffusing of the biofictional work with it. The fourth characteristic of biofiction identified by Anne-Laure is the game that biofiction authors play with biographical and factual data. Finally, in fictional biographies, the author-character appears, above all, as an ordinary character. Anne-Laure Rigeade concluded her presentation by highlighting the three facets of a character, according to Vincent Jouve: the character as ‘pawn’, as ‘person’, and as ‘pretext’.

©️ Nathalie Collé

Ludovic Dias (Université de Lorraine) then made an ‘intertextual reading of Arctic Summer, in search of Morgan’s bio in Galgut’s fiction’. According to Ludovic, it is possible to argue that Galgut’s fiction is co-authored because of the very strong presence of intertextuality in Arctic Summer. Ludovic put the novel within the context of its author’s career and claimed that the choice of E. M. Forster as main character echoed Galgut’s own life as a gay author. This aspect of Forster’s and Galgut’s life fits perfectly within the contemporary desire to (re)read the works of certain authors through the prism of queer studies. After reading two passages of Arctic Summer that have been strongly influenced by Forster’s own writings, Ludovic attempted to define the genre of biofiction, its limits, and its creative potential. Finally, Ludovic offered a broader reflection on the essential role of the reader when it comes to intertextuality.

Finally, Laura Cernat (KU Leuven) gave a paper entitled ‘From Vertigo to Nostalgia: Five Phases of Author Revival Biofiction’. She developed an innovative typology of biofictional productions, relying on their periods of production, from the 1980s to the present day. While the 1980s correspond to the phase she calls ‘Vertigo’, she entitles the next phase, which corresponding to the 1990s, ‘Kaleidoscope’. From the 2000s to the mid-2010s, three phases emerged: ‘Epiphany’, ‘Sideglance’, and ‘Nostalgia’. Laura’s paper opened up the perspectives on biofiction, established links between the various biofictional works that had been examined during the symposium, and highlighted the vibrant nature of the biofiction genre.

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