ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the transnational commemorations and on the literary canonisation of Jane Austen and Madame de Staël in France and Britain. Adopting Dović and Elgason’s model for the study of national literary canons, significant analogies are found in the evolution of the two writers’ reception from 1817 to 2017. Both authors’ works were translated soon after their publication: however, de Staël became a symbol of the anti-Napoleonic fight in Britain thus influencing her early canonisation. Austen, conversely, received few reviews in France and was associated early with an interpretation based on eighteenth-century sentimental novels. In the twentieth century their “sanctification” was supported by literary societies created in the 1930s, and they had a “shrine” in the form of their birthplaces transformed into monuments. This essay analyses the ways in which this canonisation has travelled across Britain and France. Their reception underwent a significant variation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: with the development of women’s studies, the English-speaking academic community adopted de Staël as a canonised writer. The analysis ends by raising the question of the incomplete canonisation of both female writers in France.

摘要

本文着重于跨国纪念活动以及法国和英国的简·奥斯丁和德斯塔尔夫人的文学经典化。采纳多维奇（Dović）和埃尔加森（Elgason）的模型研究国家文学经典，在1817年至2017年这两位作家的接待演变过程中发现了明显的类比。两位作家的作品发表后不久都被翻译了；但是，德·斯塔尔成为了在英国的反拿破仑战争，从而影响了她的早期封圣。相反，奥斯丁在法国很少受到评论，并且早期与基于18世纪感伤小说的解释有关。在20世纪，他们的“成圣”得到了1930年代建立的文学团体的支持，并且他们以其出生地的形式变成了纪念物而建立了“神社”。本文分析了这种规范化在英国和法国的传播方式。在20世纪和21世纪，她们的接待经历了巨大的变化：随着妇女研究的发展，英语学术团体采用了deStaël作为经典作家。分析结束时提出了法国两位女性作家的不完整经典化的问题。