Genetic Criticism

Jed Deppman teaches comparative literature and English at Oberlin College and has written on Flaubert, Valery, Joyce, Dickinson, and other writers. Daniel Ferrer is Director of Research at the Institut des Textes et Manuscrits Modernes at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. He is the author of Virginia Woolf and the Madness of Language and coeditor of Poststructuralist Joyce, Pourquoi la critique genetique? Methodes, theories, and the ongoing "Finnegans Wake" Notebooks at Buffalo project. Michael Groden is Professor of English at the University of Western Ontario. He is the author of "Ulysses" in Progress, general editor of The James Joyce Archive, and coeditor of The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism.

• Editors' Note1. Introduction: A Genesis of French Genetic Criticism2. Genetic Criticism: Origins and Perspectives-Louis Hay3. Psychoanalytic Reading and the Avant-texte-Jean Bellemin-NoËl4. Toward a Science of Literature: Manuscript Analysis and the Genesis of the Work-Pierre-Marc de Biasi5. Flaubert's "A Simple Heart," or How to Make an Ending: A Study of the Manuscripts-Raymonde Debray Genette6. With a Live Hand: Three Versions of Textual Transmission (Chateaubriand, Montaigne, Stendhal)-Jacques Neefs7. Genetic Criticism and Cultural History: Zola's Rougon-Macquart Dossiers-Henri Mitterand8. Paragraphs in Expansion (James Joyce)-Daniel Ferrer and Jean-Michel RabatÉ9. Still Lost Time: Already the Text of the Recherche-Almuth GrÉsillon10. Proust's "Confession of a Young Girl": Truth or Fiction?-Catherine Viollet11. Auto-Genesis: Genetic Studies of Autobiographical Texts-Philippe Lejeune12. Hypertext-Memories-Writing-Jean-Louis LebraveIndexAcknowledgments

"This handsome volume gathers together eleven essays, none previously translated, of what is called la critique génétique (or genetic criticism) for an Anglo-American audience. . . . The essays collected here . . . are all strong and, when taken together, they form a representative sampling of the vitality and range of genetic criticism." (Variants) "This collection of essays aims to introduce English speakers to one of the most important critical trends in France today: genetic criticism, the study of writers' manuscripts. The volume's editors have paid meticulous attention to presenting and framing the material. The comprehensive introduction by Daniel Ferrer and Michael Groden outlines genetic criticism's intellectual history and the conditions that have favored its development in France. Jed Deppman gives additional background for each individual chapter, and explanatory notes provide further clarification on points that might be obscure to readers unfamiliar with the French literary and critical context. The eleven translated essays offer a fascinating glimpse of the objects of study; some include copies of actual manuscript pages . . . while others use transcriptions." (Romanic Review)