The nouveau roman: fiction, theory, and politics

The Nouveau Roman writers have been actively involved in the theory as well as the practice of fiction, participating in a series of vigorous debates on issues such as the political significance of literature, formalism and structuralism, the status of the author, etc. This study discusses Robbe-Grillet, Sarraute, Simon, Butor and Ricardou, analysing both the interaction of their own theory and fiction and their reactions to the work of figures such as Sartre, Barthes, Lvi-Strauss, Sollers and Kristeva. "The Nouveau Roman writers have been actively involved in the theory as well as the practice of literature. Rather than simply using one of these to explain the other, this study aims to read fiction and theory together, as a corpus of texts evolving in interaction with each other. This leads to new critical interpretations of some of the novels. But the theoretical development is also affected by the wider intellectual context that the novelists - Robbe-Grillet, Sarraute, Simon, Butor and Ricardou - have worked within; they were from the outset caught up in a series of lively and often vehement debates on the political significance of literature, formalism and structuralism, the status of the author, etc. Their use of theory is essentially strategic, initially defining and legitimising them as a group. The impact of figures such as Sartre, Barthes, Levi-Strauss, Foucault, Sollers and Kristeva is analysed."--Jacket Front Matter....Pages i-vi Introduction....Pages 1-11 The Reaction against Sartre....Pages 12-47 The Notion of Structure....Pages 48-85 Structuralist Marxism: Tel Quel and Textual Production....Pages 86-117 The Myth of Creation....Pages 118-143 Intertextuality....Pages 144-184 The Counter-reaction: the Nouveau Roman in the 1980s....Pages 185-203 Back Matter....Pages 204-231