Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T14:00:54.433Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Robbe-Grillet in America: The Nouveau Roman Meets the Language Textbook

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Sara Kippur
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

How could American students of intermediate French be the catalysts for a work of avant-garde French literature? This article centers on Le rendez-vous, an intermediate French-language textbook that combined a novel written by the French New Novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet with grammatical exercises written by Yvone Lenard, a prominent textbook author and instructor of French in the United States. Focusing on previously unexamined archives of this publication, from its release in America to the publication of Robbe-Grillet's novel in France under the title Djinn, the essay reveals an unknown literary history of transnational collaboration and exchange and places new emphasis on Robbe-Grillet's formative involvement with American higher education during his literary career. Through close reading of manuscript drafts and publishers' papers, the essay demonstrates how the dynamics of global publishing and shifting trends in language pedagogy aligned to condition the production of what would become Robbe-Grillet's most commercially successful novel.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 135 , Issue 3 , May 2020 , pp. 492 - 510
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 Sara Kippur

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

“À l'honneur.” Le Californien, 11 Dec. 1970.Google Scholar
Ball, Mariette. “The Language Game in Djinn.” Romance Studies, Vol. 2, Summer 1983, pp. 1–17.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. “Littérature littérale.” Critique, nos. 100–01, Sept.–Oct. 1955, pp. 820–26.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. “Littérature objective.” Critique, nos. 86–87, July–Aug. 1954, pp. 581–91.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. Le plaisir du texte. Seuil, 1973.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. Préface. Les romans de Robbe-Grillet, by Bruce Morrissette, Les Éditions de Minuit, 1963, pp. 7–16.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. S/Z. Seuil, 1970.Google Scholar
Benamou, Michel. Introduction. Benamou and Ionesco, pp. v-xiv.Google Scholar
Benamou, Michel. Letter to Eugène Ionesco. 10 Mar. 1964, Fonds Ionesco, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 4-COL-166 (170).Google Scholar
Benamou, Michel. Pour une nouvelle pédagogie du texte littéraire. Librairies Hachette et Larousse, 1971.Google Scholar
Benamou, Michel, and Ionesco, Eugène. Mise en train: Première année de français. Macmillan, 1969.Google Scholar
Bishop, Tom. Correspondance. 1980?89, Fonds Alain Robbe-Grillet, IMEC, dossier 22 ARG/141/4.Google Scholar
Blanchot, Maurice. “Notes sur un roman.” Nouvelle Nouvelle Revue Française, Vol. 3, No. 31, July 1955, pp. 105–12.Google Scholar
Borchardt, Georges. Letter to Barney Rosset. 13 May 1957, Grove Press Records, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries, box 600.Google Scholar
Boswell, Richard. Review of Mise en train: Première année de français, by Michel Benamou and Eugène Ionesco. The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 54, No. 3, Mar. 1970, pp. 216–17.Google Scholar
Brée, Germaine, and Carlos Lynes, Jr. Preface. Com-bray, by Marcel Proust, edited by Brée and Lynes, Jr., Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1952, pp. vii–ix.Google Scholar
Brochier, Jean-Jacques. “La Chronique du Capricorne: Oedipe à Cologne.” Magazine littéraire, no. 171, Apr. 1981, p. 53.Google Scholar
Calle-Gruber, Mireille. “Survivre à sa mode: Entretien avec Robbe-Grillet.” Micromégas, Vol. 7, No. 1, 1981, pp. 7–15.Google Scholar
Chérel, A. L'anglais sans peine. Assimil, 1945.Google Scholar
Dell advertisement for the Laurel French Series Language Library. French Review, Vol. 42, No. 3, Feb. 1969. Front matter.Google Scholar
Ebling, Benjamin II. Review of Parole et pensée, by Yvone Lenard. French Review, Vol. 56, No. 5, May 1983, pp. 966–68.Google Scholar
Elsky, Julia. “Rethinking Ionesco's Absurd: The Bald Soprano in the Interlingual Context of Vichy and Postwar France.” PMLA, Vol. 133, No. 2, Mar. 2018, pp. 347–63.Google Scholar
Exman, Eugene. The House of Harper: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Publishing. Harper and Row, 1967.Google Scholar
G. D. “Alain Robbe-Grillet recidive . . .” Canalmanach, Mar. 1981.Google Scholar
Glass, Loren. Counterculture Colophon: Grove Press, the Evergreen Review, and the Incorporation of the Avant-Garde. Stanford UP, 2013.Google Scholar
Grodent, Michel. “Alain Robbe-Grillet: ‘Pour écrire Djinn, j'ai songé à Jane Birkin.‘” Le soir Bruxelles, 4 Apr. 1981, Livres-Arts-Culture.Google Scholar
Guérin, Jeanyves. Review of Djinn, by Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Esprit: nouvelle série, vols. 55–56, nos. 7–8, July–Aug. 1981, pp. 125–26.Google Scholar
Harper advertisement for Parole et pensée. Harper and Row Publishers Annual Report, 2nd ed., Harper and Row, 1971.Google Scholar
Ionesco, Eugène. “The Bald Soprano: The Tragedy of Language.” The Grove Press Reader, 1951–2001, edited by Gonstarski, S. E., translated by Donald Watson, Grove Press, 2001, pp. 48–51.Google Scholar
Josselin, Jean-François. “Rendez-vous au manège.” Le nouvel observateur, no. 856, 6–12 Apr. 1981, pp. 70–71.Google Scholar
Koropeckyj, Roman. “Another Ionesco Joke.” The New York Times, 15 Apr. 1994, p. A30.Google Scholar
Lambert, Emmanuelle. Mon grand écrivain. Les Impressions Nouvelles, 2009.Google Scholar
Language Enrollment Database, 1958–2016. Modern Language Association, 2020, apps.mla.org/flsurvey_search.Google Scholar
Lenard, Yvone. Guidelines for Robbe-Grillet. Fonds Alain Robbe-Grillet, IMEC, dossier 22 ARG/57/10.Google Scholar
Lenard, Yvone. Introduction. Robbe-Grillet and Lenard, pp. ix-xi.Google Scholar
Lenard, Yvone. Phone interview. By Sara Kippur, 5 July 2016.Google Scholar
Lenard, Yvone. Proposal to Robbe-Grillet. Fonds Alain Robbe-Grillet, IMEC, dossier 22 ARG/57/9.Google Scholar
Lindon, Jérôme. Letter to Alain Robbe-Grillet. 22 Nov. 1982, Fonds Robbe-Grillet, IMEC, Correspondance Lindon.Google Scholar
Luey, Beth. “The Organization of the Book Publishing Industry.” The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America, edited by Paul Nord, David et al., U of North Carolina P, 2009, pp. 29–54. Vol. 5 of A History of the Book in America.Google Scholar
Maazaoui, Abbes. “Représentation et altérité dans les romans de RG.” The French Review, Vol. 68, No. 3, Feb. 1995, pp. 477–86.Google Scholar
Macmillan advertisement for the Modern French Literature Series. The French Review, Dec. 1968 and Mar. 1969. Front matter.Google Scholar
Matthys, Francis. “Rencontré Alain Robbe-Grillet.” La Libre Belgique, 9 Apr. 1981.Google Scholar
McGurl, Mark. The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing. Harvard UP, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McSpadden, George E. Letter to Yvone Lenard. 9 Sept. 1971. Personal files of Yvone Lenard.Google Scholar
Memorial resolution for Professor Michel Benamou. 14 Sept. 1978. University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, apps .uwm.edu/secu-policies/storage/faculty/1112.pdf. 1973–74 Catalog. Phillips Academy, 1973. Internet Archive, archive.org/details/catalogcourseofs00phil.Google Scholar
Noël, Lison. The French New Novel: Réception du nouveau roman par le milieu artistique américain: 1963–1981. 2014. Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre-La Défense, PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Nuridsany, Michel. “Robbe-Grillet: Humour et science-fiction.” Le Figaro, 6 Mar. 1981.Google Scholar
“Le Palmarès: Les meilleurs livres des dix dernières années.” Le monde des livres, 21 Mar. 1986.Google Scholar
Piatier, Jacqueline. “Robbe-Grillet ensorcelle la grammaire.” Le monde des livres, 20 Mar. 1981, p. 15.Google Scholar
Pons, Anne. “Robbe-Grillet: Le troisième clone.” Le Point, 25 May 1981, p. 149.Google Scholar
Ricardou, Jean. Pour une théorie du nouveau roman. Seuil, 1971.Google Scholar
Richards, Jack C, and Rodgers, Theodore S.. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. 3rd ed., Cambridge UP, 2014.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Brouillons: Djinn. Fonds Alain Robbe-Grillet, IMEC, dossier 22 ARG/56/20.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Brouillons: Djinn. Fonds Alain Robbe-Grillet, IMEC, dossier 22 ARG/56/21.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Brouillons: Djinn. Fonds Alain Robbe-Grillet, IMEC, dossier 22 ARG/56/23.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Djinn. Translated by Lenard, Yvone and Wells, Walter, Grove Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Djinn: Un trou rouge entre les pavés disjoints. 1981. Les Éditions de Minuit, 2013.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Entretiens complices. Edited by Allemand, Roger-Michel, EHESS, 2018.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Epreuves corrigées: Djinn. Fonds Alain Robbe-Grillet, IMEC, dossier 22 ARG/57/4.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Epreuves corrigées: Djinn. Fonds Alain Robbe-Grillet, IMEC, dossier 22 ARG/57/10.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. For a New Novel: Essays on Fiction. Translated by Howard, Richard, Northwestern UP, 1989.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Galleys: Le rendez-vous. Fonds Alain Robbe-Grillet, IMEC, dossier 22 ARG/56/26.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Ghosts in the Mirror. Translated by Levy, Jo, Grove Weidenfeld, 1988.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Letter to Barney Rosset. 22 May 1958, Grove Press Records, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries, box 594.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Letter to Barney Rosset. 3 June 1978, Barney Rosset Papers, box 40, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Letter to Catherine Robbe-Grillet. 14 May 1978. Robbe-Grillet and Robbe-Grillet, pp. 462–63.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Letter to Catherine Robbe-Grillet. 9 June 1978. Robbe-Grillet and Robbe-Grillet, pp. 485–86.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Letter to Catherine Robbe-Grillet. 1979. Robbe-Grillet and Robbe-Grillet, pp. 502–03.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. “Order and Disorder in Film and Fiction.” Translated by Bruce Morrissette. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 4, No. 1, Autumn 1977, pp. 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Préface à une vie d'écrivain. Seuil, 2005.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Syllabus for Le Nouveau Nouveau Roman. NYU course G45.2731, Fonds Alain Robbe-Grillet, IMEC, dossier 22 ARG/141/2 (1971–1976).Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain, and Robbe-Grillet, Catherine. Correspondance, 1951–1990. Edited by Lambert, Emmanuelle, Fayard, 2012.Google Scholar
Robbe-Grillet, Alain, and Lenard, Yvone. Le rendez-vous. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981.Google Scholar
Rosset, Barney. Guggenheim Fellowship recommendation letter. Grove Press Records, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries, box 600.Google Scholar
Rosset, Barney. Letter to Renee Spodheim. 29 June 1956, Grove Press Records, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries, box 600.Google Scholar
Rosset, Barney. Letter to Yvone Lenard. 19 May 1981, Grove Press Records, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries, box 599.Google Scholar
Rosset, Barney. Letter to Yvone Lenard. 13 Aug. 1981, Grove Press Records, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries, box 599.Google Scholar
Sabin, Mark. Letter to Yvone Lenard. 1 Dec. 1971. Personal files of Yvone Lenard.Google Scholar
Schoenfeld, Eric. Letter to Michel Benamou. 3 Jan. 1966. Exercices de conversation, Correspondance 1965–1968, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Fonds Ionesco, 4-COL-166 (171).Google Scholar
Simonin, Anne. Les Éditions de Minuit 1942–55: Le devoir d'insoumission. IMEC, 2008.Google Scholar
Squire, James R., and Richard, T. Morgan. “The Elementary and High School Textbook Market Today.” Textbooks and Schooling in the United States, edited by Elliott, David L. and Woodward, Arthur, National Society for the Study of Education, 1990, pp. 107–26.Google Scholar
Stolzfus, Ben. “Robbe-Grillet's Djinn: The Grammar of Subversion.” Degree Second: Studies in French Literature, Vol. 8, July 1984, pp. 19–26.Google Scholar
Suleiman, Susan Rubin. Subversive Intent: Gender, Politics, and the Avant-Garde. Harvard UP, 1990.Google Scholar
University of Victoria Calendar, 1983–84. University of Victoria, 1983. Internet Archive, archive.org/details/universityofvictl983univ.Google Scholar
Verba, Cynthia. The Ph.D. and Your Career: A Guide for Musicologists. Office of Career Services, Harvard University, 1980. American Musicological Society, cdn.ymaws.com/www.amsmusicology.org/resource/resmgr/files/resources/ams-career-guide.pdf.Google Scholar
Vilar, Jean-François. Review of Djinn, by Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Rouge, no. 976, 3–9 July 1981, p. 21.Google Scholar
Vils, Ursula. “A Good Teacher's Anthem: All You Need Is Love.” Los Angeles Times, 14 May 1970, p. D1.Google Scholar
Whiteside, Anna. “Believe It or Not: On Reading the Fantastic and Robbe-Grillet's Djinn.” L'Esprit Créateur, Vol. 28, No. 3, Fall 1988, pp. 79–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, Jonathan. “Where the Textbook Is King: The Textbook in American Culture.” The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America, edited by Paul Nord, David et al., U of North Carolina P, 2009, pp. 304–24. Vol. 5 of A History of the Book in America.Google Scholar