"If monstrous cannot be pictured, it can be signified": the Melvillean visual imagination in France

The subject of this work is the study of the illustrations and visual adaptations of Herman Melville’s prose in the light of the cultural and intellectual context in which the author was received in France. In addition to the canonical position held by a "French Melville" through his introduction to the French intellectual sphere by philosophers and researchers, there exists a rich corpus that extends beyond academic works. This corpus includes adaptations in popular culture, such as in cinema, television, and comic books. This thesis thus intends to go beyond the realm of scholarly cultural framework by exploring what constituted the Melvillean canon for a non-academic audience, and how it manifests itself in visual culture.

On the one hand, the aim is to move beyond the idea of Melville as a mere source and to explore how each adaptation reinvents and questions the Melvillean canon, thereby creating new meanings by providing new interpretative frameworks for the narratives. A second issue is the tension between representation and the unrepresentable, which is a central aspect of Melville’s poetics, especially in the cetological chapters of Moby-Dick with the protean and elusive nature of the sperm whale.

The approach is interdisciplinary, drawing upon theories of adaptation, intertextuality, transfictionality, visual studies, and also queer studies. The influence of cultural materialism makes it possible to avoid as far as possible any temptation to essentialise the author, and to question the ideological models in tension within a specific space and time.

Keywords: Melville, Herman (1819-1891) – themes ; American literature – 19th century ; Moby-Dick (novel) – Hermeneutics ; Comic books – Adaptation ; American literature – reception in France ; Pop culture -- France

• Circulation of North American literary and cultural models in the European imagination (Herman Melville) and of European literary and cultural models in the American imagination (Classical Antiquity, Shakespeare)
• Gender studies in the Nineteenth Century American literature
• Intertextuality and transfictionality accross media, especially in comic books (bande dessinée) and TV series.
• Visuals studies
• Queer studies
• Pop culture, media studies, especially fanzines (goth studies), and fan studies
• Rock studies