Språkvetenskapliga fakulteten, LILAe

Kalendarium

This presentation aims to analyse the way French modern literature describes submarine worlds, and how authors represent life under the sea. From the second half of the nineteenth century to the 1950s, technical changes profoundly modified the image of the sea in cultural representations. Around 1850-1860, there were major improvements made to diving suits, so that one could observe submarine life with an accuracy that had never been possible before. Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is a major testimony of this change: it is the first book in modern literature that gives lengthy and accurate descriptions of submarine sceneries. In the 1950s technical changes produced an evolution in contemporary representations. The ability to film underwater was developed and much improved in this decade, and Cousteau’s film, The World of Silence, won the “Palme d’or” at Cannes in 1956. The public then got to see extraordinary images of life under the sea, which became more familiar to him. Thanks to such films, with this more widely shared knowledge about submarine life, representations in literature also evolved, dealing with new issues, such as ecological preservation. The effective mix between science popularization and action will be analysed, particularly the way underwater cities as a theme in popular literature between 1890 and 1940 construct utopias or dystopias, and how Jules Verne invents a new poetic prose to describe underwater sceneries. This theme became a popular topic, a stereotype. Popular novels appeared as open spaces for freedom of imagination, producing utopias or dystopias. Literature thus shaped a new imagery, which circulated after 1950 through different medias: cinema (science fiction films), comics, mangas, novels. These intermedial fictions now deal with ecological issues, questioning in a new way the interdependence between man and the sea. Anordnas av LILAe: högre seminarium & Seminariet för romansk litteraturvetenskap Kontaktperson: Sylviane Robardey-Eppstein