Résumé/Abstract
Cet article propose d’envisager le patrimoine architectural comme le lieu d’une cristallisation des discours nostalgiques, idéalisant un âge d’or perdu. Quatre Mémoires fictifs (œuvres de fiction reprenant les thèmes et l’ethos traditionnels des Mémoires référentiels) mettent en scène des protagonistes soucieux de préserver l’état du monde qu’ils ont connu dans leur jeunesse et articulent cette analyse autour de questions de préservation ou de réhabilitation du patrimoine :Brideshead Revisited de Evelyn Waugh, Mémoires d’Hadrien de Marguerite Yourcenar, The Remains of the Day de Kazuo Ishiguro et Le Grand Cœur de Jean-Christophe Rufin. Néanmoins, à mesure que l’on s’éloigne de la Seconde Guerre mondiale d’une part et plus l’écart temporel entre l’époque où prend place l’intrigue et celle où l’auteur écrit est grand d’autre part, il semblerait que l’on entende également un discours plus optimiste, plus progressiste. En fin de compte, on peut émettre l’hypothèse que les Mémoires deviennent un nouveau monument. À l’image du palais de Jacques Cœur, ces romans font mémoire du passé, plongent le lecteur dans des époques révolues avec tout ce qu’elles comportaient de promesses, accomplies ou non, mais se tournent résolument vers l’avenir en se faisant d’abord tombeau littéraire de ce monde disparu puis en transmettant à la postérité les impressions laissées par les bâtiments, les vestiges architecturaux sur les personnages.
Summoning heritage in literature: lamenting, commemorating, preserving
This paper looks at architectural heritage as a context for the crystallisation of nostalgic discourses, idealising a lost golden age. Four fictional memoirs (works of fiction that take up the traditional themes and ethos of referential memoirs) feature protagonists concerned with preserving the state of the world they knew in their youth, and articulate this analysis around questions of heritage preservation or rehabilitation: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, Mémoires d’Hadrien by Marguerite Yourcenar, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and Le Grand Coeur by Jean-Christophe Rufin. However, the further we move away from the Second World War and the greater the time gap between the period in which the plot takes place and the period in which the author is writing, it would seem that we can also hear a more optimistic, more progressive discourse. Ultimately, we can speculate that the memoirs themselves become a new monument. Like Jacques Coeur’s palace, these novels remember the past, plunge the reader into bygone eras with all their promise, whether fulfilled or not, but they look resolutely to the future, first becoming the literary tomb of a vanished world and then passing on to posterity the impressions left on the characters by the buildings and architectural remains.
Summoning heritage in literature: lamenting, commemorating, preserving
This paper looks at architectural heritage as a context for the crystallisation of nostalgic discourses, idealising a lost golden age. Four fictional memoirs (works of fiction that take up the traditional themes and ethos of referential memoirs) feature protagonists concerned with preserving the state of the world they knew in their youth, and articulate this analysis around questions of heritage preservation or rehabilitation: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, Mémoires d’Hadrien by Marguerite Yourcenar, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and Le Grand Coeur by Jean-Christophe Rufin. However, the further we move away from the Second World War and the greater the time gap between the period in which the plot takes place and the period in which the author is writing, it would seem that we can also hear a more optimistic, more progressive discourse. Ultimately, we can speculate that the memoirs themselves become a new monument. Like Jacques Coeur’s palace, these novels remember the past, plunge the reader into bygone eras with all their promise, whether fulfilled or not, but they look resolutely to the future, first becoming the literary tomb of a vanished world and then passing on to posterity the impressions left on the characters by the buildings and architectural remains.
Citer
Bérengère Darlison, « Convoquer le patrimoine en littérature: déplorer, commémorer, sauvegarder », dans Pagaille, n°3, « Rétrotopies ou l’idéalisation du passé », 2024, p. 75–84. Url : https://revue-pagaille.fr/2024–3‑darlison/