Publication date: 7 June 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787356733
Number of illustrations: 6
Exile, Non-Belonging and Statelessness in Grangaud, Jabès, Lubin and Luca
No man’s language
Greg Kerr (Author)
At least since the Romantic era, poetry has often been understood as a powerful vector of collective belonging. The idea that certain poets are emblematic of a national culture is one of the chief means by which literature historicizes itself, inscribes itself in a shared cultural past and supplies modes of belonging to those who consume it. But what, then, of the exiled, migrant or translingual poet? How might writing in a language other than one’s mother tongue complicate this picture of the relation between poet, language and literary system? What of those for whom the practice of poetry is inseparable from a sense of restlessness or unease, suggesting a condition of not being at home in any one language, even that of their mother tongue?
These questions are crucial for four French-language poets whose work is the focus of this study: Armen Lubin (1903-74), Ghérasim Luca (1913-94), Edmond Jabès (1912-91) and Michelle Grangaud (1941-). Ranging across borders within and beyond the Francosphere – from Algeria to Armenia, to Egypt, to Romania – this book shows how a poetic practice inflected by exile, statelessness or non-belonging has the potential to disrupt long-held assumptions of the relation between subjects, the language they use and the place from which they speak.
Praise for Exile, Non-Belonging and Statelessness in Grangaud, Jabès, Lubin and Luca
‘Kerr’s book is a major contribution to Francophone studies, and to modern poetry studies more generally, in its penetrating exploration of the migrant, the stateless, and the diasporic writer. Engaging with current thought in philosophy of language, translation studies, and word-and-image studies, Kerr opens readers’ eyes and minds to how poetry undoes national and linguistic orthodoxies and makes its counterblast.’
Susan Harrow, University of Bristol
‘Clear and engaging…not only offers valuable insight into four significant poets, but also makes an important contribution to the intersection between poetry criticism and thought today.’
Modern Language Review
‘The striking success of Kerr’s study is to have shone light on the paradoxical nature of belonging, best exploited by poetic language.’
H-France Review
‘Acknowledging the emblematic relation that poetry holds with national culture and the role that literature plays as an institution that provides modes of belonging, Kerr’s work unravels how exophonic texts “complicate the relation between poet, national, or majoritarian language and literary system”‘
The French Review
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Solemn attestation: illness and statelessness in Armen Lubin
2 No grounds for looking: Edmond Jabès and the questioning of the image
3 ‘Brûler les états / Brûler les étapes’: Ghérasim Luca
4 Taking leave of one’s self: Michelle Grangaud between propre and commun
Conclusion
Index
DOI: 10.14324/111.9781787356733
Number of illustrations: 6
Publication date: 07 June 2021
PDF ISBN: 9781787356733
EPUB ISBN: 9781787356764
Hardback ISBN: 9781787356757
Paperback ISBN: 9781787356740
Greg Kerr (Author)
Greg Kerr is Lecturer in French at the University of Glasgow. His research interests lie primarily in French-language poetry from the nineteenth century onwards. He was co-editor of the Modern Languages Open special collection ‘Between borders: French-language poetry and the poetics of statelessness’ in 2019 and is the author of the monograph Dream Cities: Utopia and Prose by Poets in Nineteenth-Century France (2013). He is currently General Editor (Special Issues) for Forum for Modern Language Studies and a member of the editorial board of the Irish Journal of French Studies.
‘Clear and engaging…not only offers valuable insight into four significant poets, but also makes an important contribution to the intersection between poetry criticism and thought today.’
Modern Language Review
‘The striking success of Kerr’s study is to have shone light on the paradoxical nature of belonging, best exploited by poetic language.’
H-France Review
‘Acknowledging the emblematic relation that poetry holds with national culture and the role that literature plays as an institution that provides modes of belonging, Kerr’s work unravels how exophonic texts “complicate the relation between poet, national, or majoritarian language and literary system”‘
The French Review
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