Towards generic autonomy: the récit de voyage as mode, genre and form

Abstract

Travel writing faces a generic paradox: even though it has a long and rich tradition, it seems to lack theoretical legitimacy. Critics tend to undervalue travel writing by describing it as a hybrid genre, and analyse it with the concepts and theories that have been forged for other types of narratives. The aim of this article is to think through the possibilities of travel writing's theoretical autonomy. Calling upon formalist thinkers, first the récit de voyage is theorised as a ‘pole of writing’, as opposed to a mix of genres. Then it is described in a tripartite structure of ‘mode’, ‘genre’ and ‘form’, which revitalises the concept of a ‘peripatetic mode’, in order to provide this genre with some conceptual tools adequate to its analysis. Several illustrations are used for that purpose, but close attention is paid to the work of the contemporary French travel writer Jean Rolin.

Keywords:

• genre
• genericity
• form
• peripatetic mode
• narrative theory
• Jean Rolin

Notes

Notes

1. Percy G. Adams, Travel Literature and the Evolution of the Novel (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983), 280–1.

2. Jan Borm, ‘Defining Travel: On the Travel Book, Travel Writing and Terminology’, in Perspectives on Travel Writing, ed. Glenn Hooper and Tim Youngs (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 13–26 (13).

3. Charles Forsdick, ‘De la plume comme des pieds: the Essay as a Peripatetic Genre’, in The Modern Essay in French: Movement, Instability, Performance, ed. Charles Forsdick and Andrew Stafford (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2005), 45–60.

4. Karl Viëtor, ‘L’histoire des genres littéraires’, Poétique, 32 (1977): 490–506 (491). First published in German in Deutscher Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, 9 (1931). To my knowledge, no English translation exists. ‘Basic attitude’ translates Viëtor's concept of ‘attitude fondamentale’ in French, hence the interchangeability between the words ‘basic’ and ‘fundamental’ in this article.

5. Quoted in Jan Borm, ‘Defining Travel’, 16, and Charles Forsdick, ‘Travel Literature and/as Genre’, in Charles Forsdick, Feroza Basu and Siobhán Shilton, New Approaches to Twentieth-Century Travel Literature in French: Genre, History, Theory (New York: Peter Lang, 2006), 13–57 (20).

6. Wendelin Guentner, ‘Aspects génériques du récit de voyage français: l’utile dulci’, Australian Journal of French Studies, 32, no. 2 (1995): 131–54 (149).

7. In French, a ‘pôle de compétitivité’ [competitiveness pole] is an industry hub which works as a zone of concentration that becomes attractive to competing firms, with a special legal status. The notion of pole is also used in international relations, defining a ‘monde multipolaire’ [multipolar world] to describe the end of the domination of one powers, replaced by a balanced interaction between several major powers (North America, Europe, China/Japan, etc.).

8. Jean Rolin, ‘La chapelle ardente du maréchal Ney’, Le Visiteur, 6 (2000): 20–35 (23).

9. Hans Robert Jauss, ‘Littérature médiévale et théorie des genres’ in Théorie des genres, ed. Gérard Genette and Tzvetan Todorov (Paris: Seuil, 1986), 44.

10. Gérard Genette, Introduction à l’architexte (Paris: Seuil, 1991).

11. Karl Viëtor, ‘L’histoire des genre littéraires’, 491.

12. Dominique Combe, Les Genres littéraires (Paris: Hachette, 1992), 124.

13. Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 2.

14. André Jolles, Formes simples (Paris: Seuil, 1972). Translated from the German: Einfache Formen (Halle: Niemeyer Verlag, 1930). To the best of my knowledge, no English translation exists. Capital letters are kept in the French translation and will be retained here.

15. Jolles, Formes simples, 166.

16. Jolles, Formes simples, 171.

17. Jolles, Formes simples, 165.

18. Jolles, Formes simples, 70.

19. Jean Rolin, Chrétiens (Paris: P.O.L., 2003), 74; L’Organisation (Paris: Gallimard, 1996), 34.

20. Hulme and Youngs, The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, 3.

21. Forsdick, ‘De la plume comme des pieds: the Essay as a Peripatetic Genre’, 45–60.

22. Jean Rolin, Cherbourg-est/Cherbourg-ouest (Paris: Editions du patrimoine, 2002), 46.

23. Rolin, Cherbourg-est/Cherbourg-ouest, 57.

24. Charles Forsdick, Victor Segalen and the Aesthetics of Diversity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 184.