https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=674 Index des publications de auteurs Guillaume Fourcade fr 0 https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=1001 In a Latin verse epistle to George Herbert dated January 23, 1615, Donne comments on the new seal which, as a substitute to that of his family, he was to use after his ordination. It represents Christ’s cross whose lower part extends to form the two bows of an anchor. Donne scholars have shown that, while emphasizing Donne’s new official functions in the Church, his new crest reveals a spiritual transition from an old, sin-stained life to absolute faith in Christ’s redemptive power. He is the anchor ensuring stability and salvation. However, readers of Donne may not have given the symbol of the anchor all the attention it deserves. An anchor is indeed primarily used aboard a ship following a crossing, which associates it first and foremost with maritime journeys. If Donne’s new arms represent a transit ending with a safe anchoring in Christ, the former is to be understood as a voyage. The cross-cum-anchor is above all the sign of a spiritual crossing. This article explores the reverberated presence of the motif of crossings in two of Donne’s religious poems, « A Hymn to Christ, at the Author’s Last Going into Germany » and « The Cross ». It shows that, whether or not inspired by an actual voyage, both texts represent man’s aspiration to be reunited with Christ in the form of a hazardous or painful transit from his sinful, earthly existence to the everlasting peace of heaven and Christ’s eternal love. While analyzing the representational, spiritual, and ontological crossings staged by both poems, this study argues that they are reflected by a poetics of transition, marked by numerous shifts or crossings of the signified. Meaning is thus itself constantly in transit. lun., 20 juin 2016 15:42:54 +0200 lun., 20 juin 2016 15:42:54 +0200 https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=1001 https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=673 La complexité qui travaille la poésie de John Donne a souvent été commentée et si un concept critique semble ne pas s’appliquer à cette dernière, c’est celui de transparence. Toutefois, ces poèmes sont émaillés de représentations d’objets transparents, qu’il s’agisse d’instruments d’optique, lentilles, lunettes et miroirs, ou de réalités plus triviales, tels que les larmes ou les yeux. Ce travail se propose d’interroger le rôle joué dans les textes par ces représentations. Si tous ces objets ont en commun de se laisser traverser par la lumière ou le regard, en est-il de même dans les poèmes et prêtent-ils leur limpidité à la construction du sens ? Cet article s’attache à montrer que, paradoxalement, la transparence représentée dans les textes contribue à leur opacité. Il s’agira d’envisager comment s’élabore ce renversement paradoxal et, dans un premier temps, d’observer comment Donne déconstruit le paradigme qui lie transparence visuelle et clarté intellectuelle. Dans ses poèmes, les objets transparents, à travers lesquels il s’agit de regarder pour comprendre et savoir, ne permettent pas de voir clair. Ils s’ingénient au contraire à engendrer doutes et incertitudes, compréhension imparfaite et connaissance fragmentaire. Néanmoins, ce dévoiement de la transparence ne demeure pas au stade de la représentation. Le second pan de l’étude met en évidence en quoi il s’applique à la lettre même des textes dans lesquels les objets translucides sont fréquemment détournés en surfaces réfléchissantes. La translation du cristallin au spéculaire complique non seulement ce qu’il s’agit de voir, mais surtout ce qui est dit. Dans « A Valediction: of Weeping » et « A Valediction: of my Name in the Window », elle engendre un discours ontologique singulièrement compliqué sur l’union et la désunion des signes et des êtres. The complexity of John Donne’s poetry has often been underlined and one critical concept is strikingly absent from discussions of these texts: transparency. However, these poems are fraught with representations of transparent objects, whether they be optical instruments (lenses and mirrors) or more mundane realities, such as tears or eyes. This study aims at questioning the role played by these representations in the texts. If all these objects have in common to let light and the gaze through, is it also the case in the poems, and do they lend their limpidness to the construction of meaning? This article shows that, paradoxically, the transparency represented in the texts contributes to their opacity. In a bid to demonstrate how this paradoxical shift takes place, this study first analyzes the way in which Donne deconstructs the optical transparency / intellectual clarity paradigm. In his poems, the transparent objects intended to be looked through in order to understand and to know never provide a clear sight. On the contrary, they generate doubts, uncertainties and are only conducive to imperfect and fragmentary knowledge. Yet such an undermining of transparency is not only a matter of representation. The second stage of this analysis underlines that it also affects the very word of the poems, in which translucent objects are often transformed into reflective surfaces. The translation from crystalline realities to specular ones does not only complicate what is seen, but also, and above all, what is said. In « A Valediction: of Weeping » and « A Valediction: of my Name in the Window », this transformation spawns an extremely intricate ontological discourse on the union and separation of signs and beings. ven., 22 nov. 2013 11:31:05 +0100 ven., 22 nov. 2013 11:31:05 +0100 https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=673