2016 / 21 Prospero. Rivista di letterature e culture straniere

Prospero. Rivista di letterature e culture straniere è una rivista annuale a stampa e online ad accesso aperto del Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici dell’Università di Trieste (DiSU), pubblicata dal 1994 presso la casa editrice EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste. È apparsa in precedenza con il complemento di titolo Rivista di letterature e civiltà Anglo-germaniche e, dal 2005 al 2011, con quello di Rivista di Letterature straniere, Comparatistica e Studi culturali. La rivista pubblica contributi originali dedicati alle letterature di lingua inglese, tedesca e francese. Prospero ospita contributi inediti di studiosi italiani e stranieri che pongono il testo letterario e l’analisi testuale al centro di più ampie riflessioni di carattere ermeneutico, filologico e storico-culturale. In particolare, si apre alle convergenze di carattere interdisciplinare e transdisciplinare tra la letteratura e gli altri saperi. Numeri monografici curati da guest editors italiani e stranieri su temi specifici si alternano a numeri miscellanei.

Between 1942 and 1944, Paul Morand, writer-diplomat, served the government of Vichy regime, which had to collaborate with Hitler's Germany. But as a writer, what was his involvement in Vichy politics? Indeed, it has put its name and its great reputation to serve Petain and its ideology of the National Revolution, notably by writing journalistic chronicles that orchestrate the themes of this policy: that of moral renewal, the return to the earth, etc. He also held important administrative positions, including that of ambassador of France in Bucharest. But in his fictions the writer has remained aloof from any commitment. The presence of an ideology of law is more noticeable in his pre-war writings than in those of the period of the occupation. The Vichy experience will leave traces in the writings of the post-war period, which the writer begins with a Swiss exile for about ten years. The Morand case makes it possible to observe different figures as regards the relations between literature and politics. For him, literature must stay away from political commitments and positions. It must retain a special status that disengages it from direct current events in order to enter into an artistic dimension, which gives it its full force.

When Thierry Bourcy decides to imagine his protagonist Célestin Louise as a policeman, he includes the seven volumes of the series in the detective genre. Nevertheless the main character isn’t a smooth hero. This patriot who commits to the announcement of the mobilization, worried of carrying out the duty as citizen, witnesses the everyday life of the soldiers as well as their dramas. This experience lets undeniable tracks in his way to approach murders, clues and suspicious positions. From that point of view First World War, beyond a historic mark, is treated as a narratological agent of the stories. This article focuses on proving that the series has also inherited from what has been called the war novel, the one which emerged during post-war years. By this double parentage the author associates the stages of problem solving to the usual war scenes represented by novels or testimonies on the Great War. This process allows him to reconsider the event according to a new optics.