Abstract :
[fr] L’oeuvre de l’Autrichienne Elfriede Jelinek (née en 1946) est résolument protéiforme. Récompensée par le Prix Heinrich Böll (1986), le Prix Büchner (1998) et le Prix Nobel de Littérature (2004), elle a indubitablement marqué le paysage littéraire et médiatique des pays germanophones. Connue pour ses romans (La Pianiste, Enfants des Morts) et ses pièces de théâtre (Drames de princesses, Les contrats du commerçant), elle est ici abordée par la bande, au gré de trois-cent-cinquante textes brefs rédigés pour la presse et d’autres canaux depuis quarante ans. Chronique d’une vie et d’une époque, en permanent dialogue avec d’autres artistes, ils sont présentés ici pour la première fois. Des extraits en traduction et des analyses de détail font découvrir ce versant peu connu de l’écriture jelinekienne ainsi que le renouvellement à l’oeuvre dans l’essai contemporain.
Cette étude a reçu le Prix Pierre Grappin 2014, ancien Doyen de l’Université de Nanterre, résistant et germaniste.
[en] This thesis discusses the work of the Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek (Nobel Prize for Literature 2004) from its margins, from a corpus of “short texts” written from the beginning of her career beside her novels and plays. As occasional prose, these essays are grounded in a specific aesthetic paradigm, which this dissertation seeks to define by examining their original conditions of publication. This method brings to light that these are commissioned works, released on very different media formats than a book (journals, flyers, programs and the internet), which have their own mode of reception due to their volatility in space and time. The corpus is presented against the backdrop of Jelinek’s main work and its major turning-points. It is also set in the context of Austria’s post-1945 literature according to the author’s personal and professional network in order to reintegrate Jelinek in her generation. Three chapters are then dedicated to a detailed analysis of the texts. This thesis highlights the slow genesis of their main theme, the possibility of a feminine work of art. Then it studies three characteristics of their style - hollowing, paradox and liquidity. Lastly, it deals with the relation to the reader, conceived as jamming and interference, both allowing, at least for a time, to prolong the text’s meaning, as it otherwise tends to become more and more obscure. Relation and singularity are key notions of this thesis, considered as the main aesthetic and political issues of its corpus, being also part of the essayistic tradition, discussed through some canonical definitions (Lukács, Adorno, Barthes, Marielle Macé, Georg Stanitzek).
