Mazeppa's horse : a case of Anglo-French intertextuality (Voltaire-Byron-Hugo)
The aim of this thesis is to reassess the value of the horse-figure in the tale of Mazeppa. The study begins with an attempt to establish the status of the tale as a Romantic myth in Western European culture and identifies four texts as a corpus of study: Voltaire's Histoire de Charles XII, roi de Suede, Lord Byron's Mazeppa, its translation into French by Amedee Pichot and, finally, Victor Hugo's 'Mazeppa' from his collection Les Orientales. Using methodologies derived from the history of ideas, psychoanalysis, and contextual and intertextual approaches, it is proposed that these four texts form a chain of meaning. The texts are examined at symbolic, structural and textual levels. At these levels, the concepts of the 'centaur complex' and the 'Pegasus complex' are introduced, enabling the outline of the horse as a representation of poetic inspiration and genius to emerge. This appears implicitly or explicitly in the texts and is effected through a dialectical process of fusion and inversion occurring within the man-animal relationship. As a result, the horse becomes not only a thematic link, or 'bridge', horizontally tying the chain of texts together, but it also endorses, within each text, a deeper, vertical
Sibona, Bruno
Philosophy
Mazeppa's horse : a case of Anglo-French intertextuality (Voltaire-Byron-Hugo). The aim of this thesis is to reassess the value of the horse-figure in the tale of Mazeppa. The study begins with an attempt to establish the status of the tale as a Romantic myth in Western European culture and identifies four texts as a corpus of study: Voltaire's Histoire de Charles XII, roi de Suede, Lord Byron's Mazeppa, its translation into French by Amedee Pichot and, finally, Victor Hugo's 'Mazeppa' from his collection Les Orientales. Using methodologies derived from the history of ideas, psychoanalysis, and contextual and intertextual approaches, it is proposed that these four texts form a chain of meaning. The texts are examined at symbolic, structural and textual levels. At these levels, the concepts of the 'centaur complex' and the 'Pegasus complex' are introduced, enabling the outline of the horse as a representation of poetic inspiration and genius to emerge. This appears implicitly or explicitly in the texts and is effected through a dialectical process of fusion and inversion occurring within the man-animal relationship. As a result, the horse becomes not only a thematic link, or 'bridge', horizontally tying the chain of texts together, but it also endorses, within each text, a deeper, vertical
horse case anglo_french intertextuality voltaire aim_reassess value horse figure tale study_begin attempt_establish status tale romantic myth western_european culture identifies text corpus_study voltaire charles lord translation french finally victor collection using methodology derive history_idea psychoanalysis contextual intertextual approach propose texts form chain meaning text examine symbolic structural textual level level concept complex complex introduce enable outline horse representation poetic inspiration genius emerge appear implicitly explicitly texts dialectical process fusion occur_within man animal relationship horse becomes thematic link bridge tie chain text together also endorse within text deep vertical