Reviving the Spirit of Edgar Allan Poe: The Hy“poe”text in Three Stories by Willa Cather
Willa Cather started her career as a short story writer and never abandoned the form. Edgar Allan Poe’s influence on the young Willa Cather is undeniable and several of her stories clearly bear the imprint of the short fiction master. She later disowned her apprenticeship work describing it as “imit...
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| Xuất bản năm: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jsse, |
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| Tác giả chính: | |
| Định dạng: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Ngôn ngữ: | Anglais |
| Được phát hành: |
Journal of the Short Story in English
2023
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| Truy cập trực tuyến: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Tóm tắt: | Willa Cather started her career as a short story writer and never abandoned the form. Edgar Allan Poe’s influence on the young Willa Cather is undeniable and several of her stories clearly bear the imprint of the short fiction master. She later disowned her apprenticeship work describing it as “imitative and artificial.” Yet, her early stories contributed to shaping her literary identity. This paper examines several short stories in which the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe is palpable. “The Dance at Chevalier’s” and “The Affair at Grover Station” (1900) are stories of revenge and murder; “Consequences” (1916) explores the motif of the double, coupled with a suspicious death. These texts inevitably remind the reader of Poe’s most famous tales. The aim here is to determine in which way hypertextuality—to use Gerard Genette’s terminology—manifests itself. The three “imitative” stories are thus read in relation to their hypotexts, at the thematic, stylistic and structural levels, in order to shed light on Cather’s writing process. Willa Cather débute sa carrière par l’écriture de nouvelles et n’abandonnera jamais cette forme. L’influence d’Edgar Allan Poe sur la jeune écrivaine est incontestable et plusieurs de ses premiers écrits portent clairement son empreinte. Elle désavouera par la suite ce travail d’apprentissage en le décrivant comme « imitatif et artificiel ». Il contribuera pourtant à façonner son identité littéraire. Cet article examine trois nouvelles dans lesquelles l’esprit d’Edgar Allan Poe est palpable. “The Dance at Chevalier’s” et “The Affair at Grover Station” (1900), abordent les thèmes de la vengeance et du meurtre ; “Consequences” (1916) explore le motif du double, assorti d’une mort suspecte. Ces textes rappellent inévitablement au lecteur les contes les plus célèbres de Poe. Il s’agit donc de déterminer de quelle manière l’hypertextualité – pour reprendre la terminologie de Gérard Genette – s’y manifeste. Les récits « imitatifs » sont ici lus en relation avec leurs hypotextes, aux niveaux thématique, stylistique et structurel, afin d’éclairer le processus d’écriture de Cather. |
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