The fictional reconstruction of reality
The present study starts from the idea that the theoretical discourse of the novel can be basicly defined as a series of critical revisions of one fundamental definition which is undoubtedly correct, yet uneffective, reductive, deprived of any inner contradiction because of its highest degree of generality: Novel is the mirror of life. This study focuses on the views of some critics and theoreticians such as Walter Benjamin, Albert Thibaudet, Ortega Y Gasset, Georg Lukács, M. Bahtin, Marthe Robert, Roland Barthes, Jean Ricardou, Umberto Eco, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Franco Moretti or Philippe Forest. Their conceptions are approached from the point of view of the various interrelations between novel and reality. We have come to the conclusion that the theoretical discourse of this literary genre makes full use of antinomies in the same way the novelistic fictional worlds reflect different, even conflicting realities altogether. Any critic must have in mind that each theory requires a certain architecture of ideas, whose configuration and dynamics depends on the variety of contexts as well as on certain levels of expectations. Moreover, he can not avoid contradiction because it makes possible conceptual productiveness. Contradiction emphasizes a certain instability of things, but also generates a dimension of possibilities. The theoretical discourse of the novel gains either coherence or dynamics from the key-concept of contradiction and develops quite under the illusion of its theoretical ultimacy.
Keywords: theoretical discourse of the novel, critical view, critical rewriting, contradiction, potentiality
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2.[1] Kumkum Sangari, The Politics of the Possible: Essays on Gender, History¸ Narrative, Colonial English, New Delhi: Tulika, 1999: „the recognition of such relativity is precisely the recognition that the world is open to change: it is necessary to prevent a foreclosure by a single meaning so that different meanings may become possible”.
3.[1] Milan Kundera, O întâlnire, traducere din franceză de Vlad Russo, Bucureşti, Editura Humanitas, 2009, p. 27.
4.[1] Ştefan Afloroaei, Experienţe alternative de adevăr, comunicare susţinută în cadrul Conferinţei Internaţionale „Cunoaştere şi acţiune”, organizată de Universitatea de Nord din Baia Mare, în cadrul proiectului POSDRU Societatea bazată pe cunoaştere, Baia Mare, 9-12 decembrie 2010.
5.[1] M. Bahtin, Probleme de literatură şi estetică, traducere de Nicolae Iliescu, prefaţă de Marian Vasile, Bucureşti, Editura Univers, 1982, p. 131.
6.[1] Walter Benjamin, Iluminări, traducere de Catrinel Pleşu, notă biografică de Friedrich Podszus, Cluj-Napoca, Editura Idea Design & Print, 2002, p. 304.
7.[1] Albert Thibaudet, Reflecţii. Despre literatură; Despre roman, traducere de Georgeta Pădureleanu, texte alese, prefaţă şi note de Mircea Pădureleanu, Bucureşti, Editura Minerva, 1973, p. 163-164.
8.[1] Ibidem, p. 172-173.
9.[1] Georg Lukács, Teoria romanului. O încercare istorico-filosofică privitoare la formele marii literaturi epice, în româneşte de Viorica Nişcov, prefaţă de N. Tertulian, Bucureşti, Editura Univers, 1977, p. 86-87.
10.[1] M. Bahtin, op. cit, p. 484.
11.[1] Marthe Robert, Romanul începuturilor şi începuturile romanului, traducere de Paula Voicu-Dohotaru, prefaţă de Angela Ion, Bucureşti, Editura Univers, 1983, p. 88-89.
12.[1] Roland Barthes, Gradul zero al scriiturii. Noi eseuri critice, traducere din franceză de Alex Cistelecan, Chişinău, Editura Cartier, 2006, p. 17.
13.[1] Ibidem, p. 28.
14.[1] Ibidem, p. 30.
15.[1] Ibidem, p. 32.
16.[1] Ibidem, p. 34.
17.[1] Virgil Nemoianu, Structuralismul. Cu o culegere de texte traduse de Gabriela Rădulescu şi Virgil Nemoianu, Bucureşti, Editura pentru Literatură Universală, 1967, p. 12.
18.[1] Vezi şi Virgil Nemoianu, O teorie a secundarului. Literatură, progres şi reacţiune, în româneşte de Livia Szász Câmpeanu, Bucureşti, Editura Univers, 1997.
19.[1]Irina Mavrodin, prefaţă la Jean Ricardou, Noi probleme ale romanului, în româneşte de Liana şi Valentin Atanasiu, Bucureşti, Editura Univers, 1988, p. 9-10.
20.[1] Umberto Eco, Lector in fabula. Cooperarea interpretative în textele narrative, în româneşte de Marina Spalas, prefaţă de Cornel Mihai Ionescu, Bucureşti, Editura Univers, 1991.
21.[1] Alain Robbe-Grillet, Pentru un nou roman, traducere şi note Vasi Ciubotariu, prefaţă: Ioan Pop-Curşeu, Cluj-Napoca, Editura Tact, 2007, p. 132.
22.[1] The Novel, volume I, History, geography, and culture (edited by Franco Moretti), Princeton University Press, 2006: “The novel is a great anthropological force, which has turned reading into a pleasure and redefined the sense of reality, the meaning of individual existence, the perception of time and of language. The novel as culture, then, but certainly also as form, or rather forms, plural, because in the two thousand years of its history one encounters the strangest creations, and high and low trade places at every opportunity, as the borders of literature are continuously, unpredictably expanded. At times, this endless flexibility borders on chaos. But thanks to it, the novel becomes the first truly planetary form: a phoenix always ready to take flight in a new direction, and to find the right language for the next generation of readers”.
23.[1] Philippe Forest, Romanul, realul şi alte eseuri, traducere şi postfaţă de Ioan Pop-Curşeu, Cluj-Napoca, Editura Tact, 2008, p. 30.
24.[1] Linda Hutcheon, Poetica postmodernismului, traducere de Dan Popescu, Bucureşti, Editura Univers, 2002, p. 197.
25.[1] Hayden White, The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality, „Critical Inquiry”, 7, 1980, 15-27: “narrative might well be considered a solution to a problem of general human concern, namely, the problem of how to translate knowing into telling, the problem of fashioning human experience into a form assimilable to structures of meaning that are generally human rather than culture-specific”.
26.[1] Vezi prefaţa lui Constantin Noica la Stéphane Lupasco, Logica dinamică a contradictoriului, selecţie, traducere din limba franceză şi postfaţă de Vasile Sporici, consultant ştiinţific şi note de Gheorghe Enescu, Bucureşti, Editura Politică, 1982.
27.[1] Michel Foucault, Arheologia cunoaşterii, traducere, note şi postfaţă de Bogdan Ghiu, Bucureşti, Editura Rao, 2010, p. 186.
28.[1] Robert Musil, Omul fără însuşiri I, traducere din limba germană de Mircea Ivănescu, ediţie revăzută şi îngrijită de Monica-Maria Aldea, Iaşi, Polirom, 2008, p. 79-80.
