Ekphrasis, Photographic Illustration and Theatrical Adaptation. A Study of Annie Ernaux’s Intermedial Autobiographic and Photographic Production - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2023

Ekphrasis, Photographic Illustration and Theatrical Adaptation. A Study of Annie Ernaux’s Intermedial Autobiographic and Photographic Production

Résumé

As a genetic critic interested in word and image relationships in the illustrated manuscripts of various writers and artists, I find myself confronted regularly with the theoretical ramifications of the theories of illustrations, intermediality, adaptation, ekphrasis and photography in my quest to analyse the complexities of my literary corpus of unpublished manuscripts, punctuated with ekphrastic, photographic and painted images. I have noticed that recent theories of adaptation, illustration, intermediality and ekphrasis rarely focus their attention on narratives of an autobiographical nature, seldom reference photographic ekphrasis and never extend their analysis to unpublished literary manuscripts. When these theoretical considerations are combined and added to genetic criticism (the formalistic study of literary manuscripts), the combination of these three fields of inquiry allows for rich explorations of the word/image relationships which underlie my textual/visual corpuses. My attention will be focussed on Annie Ernaux’s Autobiographic/Photographic production, as it represents an exceptional corpus for the study of ekphrasis, adaptation and illustration. Les années/The Years is an eclectic autobiographical text whose narrative structure is supported by the extensive use of photographic ekphrasis referencing a series of photos taken from Ernaux’s family albums. My study of The Years led me to examine Ernaux’s photographically illustrated diary (“Photojournal/Photodiary”) published several years later in Écrire la vie. This text is punctuated with one-hundred black-and-white photos which visually represent her genealogy through family photos, spanning more than one-hundred years. The Years and Ernaux’s “Photodiary” display an intratextual relationship as the first couple of important photographic ekphrasis, introduced in The Years, are reproduced in her illustrated diary as black and white photos. I will continue my investigation into the intermedial, ekphrastic, illustrative and adapted nature of Ernaux’s photographic/autobiographic production by briefly referencing the recently produced theatrical adaptation of The Years. Jeanne Champagne’s theatrical production distinguishes itself by the complexity and diversity of its intermedial transpositions which include the resonance of popular songs, dancing, the projection of images taken from newspapers, televised news events with sound tracks, the projection of some of the photographic portraits of Ernaux described in The Years and reproduced in her “Photo Diary.” The theatrical adaptation is a vibrant eclectic intermedial production which was obviously influenced by Ernaux’s autobiographical, photographic, cinematic, musical and socially referenced memoir , but it manages to revitalize Ernaux’s complex autobiographical narrative under the banner of intermediality where various media connect to render an artistic and cultural production. Champagne’s production actually “performs” a certain conception of adaptation as “an act of re-vision […] an action that contributes to and communicates with a larger network of similar actions” (Newell 2017b 19). M y study of Ernaux’s autobiographical/photographic production will end with a brief look at a manuscript page of one of the photographic ekphrasis analysed. The preliminary hand-written versions of this ekphrastic image discloses Ernaux’s attention to visual details and how her numerous descriptions of family photos were expanded upon as she extensively corrected her memoir. In brief, these ekphrastic, photographic, illustrated and adapted autobiographical texts represent an extraordinary corpus for the critical expansion of these various phenomena by exploring venues which have either been completely neglected or superficially created by theorists in these various fields of inquiry.
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Dates et versions

hal-04038356 , version 1 (20-03-2023)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-04038356 , version 1

Citer

Julie LeBlanc. Ekphrasis, Photographic Illustration and Theatrical Adaptation. A Study of Annie Ernaux’s Intermedial Autobiographic and Photographic Production. Palgrave. Adaptation and Illustration: Expanding the Borders, In press. ⟨hal-04038356⟩
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