Quand disparaissaient les étangs et les vignes. (Éco)poétique des frontières entre le sec et l’humide chez M. Gevers et E. Pagano

Abstract

Expanding on his work in ecopoetics begun in Ce qui a lieu (Marseille, Wildproject, 2015) and culminating in his study Littérature et Écologie (Paris, José Corti, 2021), Pierre Schoentjes undertakes a comparative reading of Marie Gevers’ “L’Étang” (first published in 1950) and of Emmanuelle Pagano’s La Trilogie des rives (2019, Prix du roman d’écologie 2018 for the second volume, Sauf riverains). This reading focuses on the motif of water, and through this motif on the disappearance of places threatened by development. After an overview of the priorities of ecopoetics—complementary but distinct from those of ecocriticism—the article anchors its analysis in the work of John Callicott, a thinker who, following Aldo Leopold, developed a “land aesthetic” that calls for us to attend to non-spectacular landscapes. It is to this category that the ponds and pools described by these writers belong. By analyzing how the work of writing raises questions about belonging and property, this article shows how these texts resonate with each other and problematize environmental issues. This reading thus offers an outline of how ecopoetics can escape presentism and contribute to defining an alternative literary history.

Keywords:

• Écopoétique
• eau
• esthétique environnementale
• Pagano
• Gevers

Notes

1 Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species. U of Chicago P, 2016.

2 Paris, Actes Sud, 2014.

3 Paris, Actes Sud, 2019.

4 Paris, Grasset, 2019.

5 In: Œuvres II. Edited by L. Guichard, Paris, Gallimard, [1894] 1971.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pierre Schoentjes

Pierre Schoentjes is Professor of French literature at Ghent University. A specialist of irony (Poétique de l’ironie, Seuil, 2001) and of the representation of the (Great) war (Fictions de la Grande Guerre, Classiques Garnier, 2009), his work examines literature of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries within a broad European perspective. His interest in contemporary literature led him to found, in collaboration with an international team, the online scholarly journal Revue critique de fixxion française contemporaine. His most recent work focuses on ecopoetics: Ce qui a lieu. Essai d’écopoétique (Marseille, Wildproject, 2015) and Littérature et écologie. Le mur des abeilles (Paris, José Corti, 2021).