Stéphanie Vanasten

The Literary Interview: Toward a Poetics of a Hybrid Genre

This article brings together the scattered research from the French, English, and German research traditions on the literary interview, that is, the extensive personal interview given by (or in some cases also conducted by) a literary author. The literary interview can be regarded as a hybrid genre for several reasons. First, it belongs to both the media and the literary domains. Second, its authorship is not only divided between interviewee and interviewer but also affected by editing and publishing interventions. Third, it mixes features of an oral interaction and of a written or edited communication. As a result, the literary interview as an object of study raises important questions about notions like genre, authorship, authorial positioning, and discourse at large. From a literary perspective, moreover, new light is also thrown on some of the basic characteristics associated with the personal interview in general: the “pact” or assumption of authenticity; the tension between format, on the one hand, and spontaneity, on the other hand; and the formal strategies used to (re-)create the encounter in the interview text. Both as a historical object and as a present-day, culture-specific practice, the literary interview is an interesting case of the dynamic interaction between the media and literature in contemporary cultures.

Le corps du Christ. Le roman À propos de Dédé et le catholicisme

Hugo Claus’s short novel Omtrent Deedee [With regard to Deedee], which appeared in 1963, can be read in a variety of ways. In general, two slightly antagonistic interpretative models have been dominant so far: whereas the early literary analysis by Julien Weverbergh focuses on the symbolic dimension of the story, a commentator such as Bert Vanheste emphasizes the novel’s connection with contemporary social discussions, such as the debates on the democratization of Catholic faith in the context of Vaticanum II (1962-1965). In this article I want to further develop the latter perspective by reading the book primarily as a commentary on Catholic faith, understood in its institutional as well as its ideological dimensions. In particular, I focus on the kind of priesthood the main character Deedee is embodying, on the relation between the priest Deedee and the young homosexual Claude, who seems to represent an alternative kind of priesthood, and on the process of transubstantiation, which plays a major role in all this. Finally, I relate the motif of transubstantiation to Claus’s conception of meaning and symbolism. It appears that the religious sacrament as well as the signifying process are based on the interaction between the concrete and material on the one hand and the abstract and ideal on the other. In the end, in Omtrent Deedee, both categories are unmasked as mere social constructs, failing to do what they promise: restoring an original, sacral union or wholeness.