Liberte', Fide'lite', Curiosite': the development and impact of la diversite' in French literature from 1921 to 2021 through the lens of France's olde
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Medieval & Modern Languages Fac
Abstract
Liberte', Fide'lite', Curiosite' is the motto of France's oldest publishing house, E'ditions Stock, which was founded in 1708. From 1921 onwards, the house began focusing on foreign literature. The history of E'ditions Stock is at the centre of this thesis as a framework for the analysis of the development and impact of la diversite' in French literature. This thesis defends the claim that the editors of E'ditions Stock had progressive motivations, that they challenged the standard of established publishing houses of the time and encouraged new authors from different backgrounds who would write new books exploring diverse themes. As a result of these motivations, E'ditions Stock contributed extensively to the development of la diversite' in French literature.
E'ditions Stock's archival material, held at the Institut Me'moires de l'e'dition contemporaire (IMEC) at the Abbaye D'Ardenne in Caen will be analysed alongside the books published by E'ditions Stock between 1921 and 2021. There is also a more recent archive kept by the publishing house in Paris. This thesis adopts the distant reading method of Dr Franco Moretti. It examines the interior and exterior lives of the books published by E'ditions Stock using graphs, maps and tree diagrams. The distant reading approach lends itself to tracing cross-cultural, cross-border, e'migre' literary phenomena. Quantitative methods measure the scale of phenomena, which will be interpreted alongside literary, historical, political and sociological trends. A close reading of one or two authors and novels would, by its individualistic nature, fail to represent la diversite'. The final chapter acknowledges the limitations of distant reading and introduces one qualitative approach which still avoids a close reading of texts - interviews with a variety of authors published by E'ditions Stock.
There has been no scholarly work using Moretti's approach to engage with la diversite' in twentieth-century French literature around the corpus of a publishing house. Dr Gise'le Sapiro has used a mixed methodology approach but her work explores the relationship between French literature and US publishing houses or translation. There is a history of E'ditions Stock and of French publishing houses in general, but nothing which analyses the decisions of E'ditions Stock in any depth. There have been studies on the relationship between the French publishing industry and cultural diversity but these are based on broad statistics of the industry as a whole and do not delve into the interior lives of books. This is a new and original study.
The introduction outlines the purpose and motivations of the thesis. The first chapter analytically explores the role of E'ditions Stock, its editors, readership, authors and the standard of literary dissemination that it purported to challenge. The second chapter focuses on the exterior and interior lives of the books. This could include a quantitative study of titles, marketing and cover art. The third chapter considers aspects of the history of the book, the role of the publishing house as a mediator and E'ditions Stock's relationship to prize ceremonies. The fourth chapter acknowledges the limits of Moretti's theory and introduces a qualitative research method - interviews with a wide selection of E'ditions Stock's authors. The conclusion summarises the results of the study and the effects of introducing a qualitative aspect to Moretti's theory. It visually maps how one small French institution came to dominate foreign literature and bring that diversity to France.
To date, I have been in contact with Dr Franco Moretti via email and will also be travelling to Stanford in September to discuss my methodology with him. I have begun reading some of the books published by Éditions Stock to look for common themes to quantitatively map. I have been reading introductory books to the literature and culture of twentieth-century France.
E'ditions Stock's archival material, held at the Institut Me'moires de l'e'dition contemporaire (IMEC) at the Abbaye D'Ardenne in Caen will be analysed alongside the books published by E'ditions Stock between 1921 and 2021. There is also a more recent archive kept by the publishing house in Paris. This thesis adopts the distant reading method of Dr Franco Moretti. It examines the interior and exterior lives of the books published by E'ditions Stock using graphs, maps and tree diagrams. The distant reading approach lends itself to tracing cross-cultural, cross-border, e'migre' literary phenomena. Quantitative methods measure the scale of phenomena, which will be interpreted alongside literary, historical, political and sociological trends. A close reading of one or two authors and novels would, by its individualistic nature, fail to represent la diversite'. The final chapter acknowledges the limitations of distant reading and introduces one qualitative approach which still avoids a close reading of texts - interviews with a variety of authors published by E'ditions Stock.
There has been no scholarly work using Moretti's approach to engage with la diversite' in twentieth-century French literature around the corpus of a publishing house. Dr Gise'le Sapiro has used a mixed methodology approach but her work explores the relationship between French literature and US publishing houses or translation. There is a history of E'ditions Stock and of French publishing houses in general, but nothing which analyses the decisions of E'ditions Stock in any depth. There have been studies on the relationship between the French publishing industry and cultural diversity but these are based on broad statistics of the industry as a whole and do not delve into the interior lives of books. This is a new and original study.
The introduction outlines the purpose and motivations of the thesis. The first chapter analytically explores the role of E'ditions Stock, its editors, readership, authors and the standard of literary dissemination that it purported to challenge. The second chapter focuses on the exterior and interior lives of the books. This could include a quantitative study of titles, marketing and cover art. The third chapter considers aspects of the history of the book, the role of the publishing house as a mediator and E'ditions Stock's relationship to prize ceremonies. The fourth chapter acknowledges the limits of Moretti's theory and introduces a qualitative research method - interviews with a wide selection of E'ditions Stock's authors. The conclusion summarises the results of the study and the effects of introducing a qualitative aspect to Moretti's theory. It visually maps how one small French institution came to dominate foreign literature and bring that diversity to France.
To date, I have been in contact with Dr Franco Moretti via email and will also be travelling to Stanford in September to discuss my methodology with him. I have begun reading some of the books published by Éditions Stock to look for common themes to quantitatively map. I have been reading introductory books to the literature and culture of twentieth-century France.
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