The digital edition of literary theorisation texts – the digital archive e-poeticae
After carrying a brief contextualization on the issue of literary documents in an electronic environment, we intend to present the current state of E-poeticae: an e-publishing project of literary theorisation texts produced in Portugal, France and Spain, during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, launched in 2010 by a group of researchers from CELCC/ISMAI (Oporto, Portugal) available at the website www.e-poeticae.com. It is intended to provide a digital database containing the greatest number of literary metatexts produced in those countries, in the indicated timeline. By literary theorisation texts we understand those explanatory, analytical or normative texts, in which we find expressed the guidelines, rules, goals or semiotic mechanisms that underlie the creation, structure and reception of the literary text (Silva 1988). Considering that different expressions of metaliterary consciousness may be taken into account (Głowínski 1976), in E-poeticae’s digital archive we’ve been assembling a wide variety of metatexts, such as literary criticism published in the press; manifestos; essays and treatises published separately; writers’ own statements in prefaces and other similar paratexts; or even theoretical fragments of a metaliterary nature found within the framework of a given literary text. The nature of this project is, obviously, dynamic and it implies an active and constant growth of the on-line corpus that, hopefully, will constitute a huge repository of metatextual material. Since March 2010, www.e-poeticae.com released about five hundred literary theorisation texts, all of them produced in the 19th century and published mainly in Portugal. By developing a digital database that represents documented issues that beset the metaliterary consciousness of both critics and writers, from the 19th century to the contemporary age, E-poeticae can thereby be a relevant resource contributing to the updating of the body of knowledge in the fields of History of Literary Ideas, Critical History and Theory of Literature in Portugal, Spain and France.
Keywords: e-publishing; literary theorisation; portuguese literature; spanish literature; french literature.
1. Cf notamment Manuel Portela, “Arquivos e edições digitais”, MATLIT: Revista do Programa de Doutoramento em Materialidades da Literatura, 2013, disponible sur http://iduc.uc.pt/index.php/matlit/article/view/1639/html; Jerome McGann, Radiant Textuality: Literature after the World Wide Web, New York, Palgrave, 2001; John Lavagnino, “Reading, Scholarship, and Hypertext Editions” in TEXT: Transactions of the Society for Textual Scholarship 8 (The University of Michigan Press), 1995, pp. 109-124, disponible sur http://www.stg.brown.edu/resources/stg/monographs/rshe.html; Peter Shillingsburg, General Principles for Electronic Scholarly Editions, 1993, disponible sur http://
sunsite.berkeley.edu/MLA/principles.html; Morris Eaves, “Behind the Scenes at the Blake Archive: Collaboration Takes More Than E-mail”, Journal of Electronic Publishing, December 1997, Volume 3, Issue 2, 1997, disponible sur http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=jep;view=text;rgn=main;idno=3336451.0003.202.
2. Vítor Manuel de Aguiar e Silva, Teoria da Literatura (8ª ed.), Coimbra, Almedina, 1988.
3. Carlos Reis, O Conhecimento da Literatura. Introdução aos Estudos Literários, Coimbra, Almedina, 1995.
4. Earl Miner, Comparative Poetics. An Intercultural Essay on Theories of Literature, Princeton-New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1990.
5. Dans un essai publié dans la revue New Literary History, considérant qu’il existe plusieurs expressions de conscience métalittéraire et qu’elles peuvent être formulées sous diverses formes, Michał Głowínski dressait en effet une sorte d’inventaire des matériels, supports et textes rendant possible l’analyse de la théorisation littéraire: “[…] what are the materials which render possible the analysis of literary consciousness? Several answers come to mind, one of them more immediately than the others: namely, that literary consciousness can be studied from such directly relevant documents as literary criticism, manifestos, the writers’ own statements of purpose, and theoretical reflections. We find ourselves here on the level of ‘metalangage’, or more exactly on the level of metaliterary statements concerning those literary rules which have received immediate elucidation. These rules can be formulated in any of several ways. They can, for example, be included in seemingly descriptive reflections on wellknown works (as in the case of Thomas Mann’s essays on a group of great writers); they can also be expressed directly in the form of a declaration of literary intentions. Jean Moréas’ Le Manifeste du Symbolisme, for instance, provides an example of literary consciousness directed toward literary forms yet to come./ […] theoretical fragments of a ‘metaliterary’ nature can frequently be found within the framework of a given literary text. These are sometimes openly discursive, as in the case with André Gide’s Journal des Faux-Monnayeurs, or with the theoretical essays included within Fielding’s Tom Jones. One could say that in these cases the fragments of explicit poetics penetrate within the work itself, and that for this reason these metaliterary factors occupy a place apart. Theoretical statements can also become part of the fictional universe, as when protagonists are made to discuss literary problems (the discussions on fiction in several of Balzac’s novels are a case in point).” (Michał Głowínski, “Theoretical Foundations of Historical Poetics”, New Literary History. A Journal of Theory and Interpretation, vol. II, n. 2, 1976, pp. 242-243.)
6. Philippe Hamon, “Texte littéraire et métalangage”, Poétique. Revue de Théorie et d’Analyse Littéraires, n. 31, Septembre 1977, pp. 261-284.
7. Gérard Genette, Seuils, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1987.
8. Célia Vieira et alii,
9. De notre connaissance, il n’existe pas encore aucun archive digital national ou international de textes de théorisation littéraire, même pas en des ressources en ligne spécifiquement consacrées à la recherche dans le domaine de da théorie et de la critique littéraires, comme Research Databases in Comparative Literature ou Éclat (The Essential Comparative Literature and Theory Site). Au Portugal, on espère que les récents projets Arquivo Digital da Literatura Experimental Portuguesa (Archive Digital de la Littérature Expérimentale Portugaise) et Arquivo Digital de Literatura Oral Tradicional (Archive Digital de de Littérature Orale Traditionnelle) pourront inclure dans leurs bases de données des textes de théorisation. DigLitWeb, qui dresse un inventaire rigoureux et se présente en tant que guide sélectif d’archives numériques de documents littéraires ne mentionne non plus aucune plateforme exclusivement dédiée aux textes de théorisation littéraire.
10. Le projet E-poeticae est lié à un autre projet, Page Littéraire de Porto, accessible sur www.paginaliterariadoporto.com, où nous rassemblons des fichiers numériques (vidéos, enregistrements audio, photos) consacrés à des écrivains vivants liés à la ville de Porto, dans
lesquels on trouve fréquemment des réflexions à caractère critique et théorique.
11. Bien que la quantité de textes publiés dans la plateforme E-poeticae soit encore assez restreinte, les quelques cinq cents fichiers numériques rendus à disposition des chercheurs ont déjà permis de changer quelques idées préconçues, comme la perception, encore dominante, selon laquelle la théorisation littéraire portugaise avant le 20ème siècle serait méprisable sinon inexistante. Ils ont permis de valider d’autres idées, comme par exemple les rapports étroits entre la littérature et la société. Nous pouvons, par ailleurs, confirmer, à travers la recherche par l’ordinateur et le croisement de données, l’existence de rapports étroits entre les écrivains portugais et les écrivains espagnols au 19ème siècle et encore entre eux et leurs modèles communs français, et de ce fait avoir une idée plus précise des conditions de cette réception.
