Pastoral Bric-a-brac: Joseph Cornell’s Artistic Responses to Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes

Authors

  • Mario Jurado Bonilla "Córdoba University"

Abstract

ABSTRACT

It has become a staple when Joseph Cornell’s art is analyzed and commented on to mention the novel Le Grand Meaulnes (1913) by Alain Fournier. The novel is referred to many times in Cornell’s diaries and projects. It is well-known that Joseph Cornell felt a strong attachment to anything French (especially from the fin-de-siècle period), but such is too broad an explanation for his interest on that particular novel. In this article we analyze the bond between Cornell’s art and the novel as two realizations of the pastoral mode, since it is in the theoretical context of pastoral that we can understand the connection that Cornell establishes with that novel, which results in many construction boxes by which the American artist seems to replicate Meaulnes’s experiences during the narration.

 Key words: Joseph Cornell – Alain-Fournier – pastoral – art and literature relation – assemblage art.

Baratijas pastorals: las respuestas artísticas de Joseph Cornell a la novella Le Grand Meaulnes, de Alain-Fournier

ABSTRACT

Se ha convertido en lugar común la mención de la novela Le Gran Meaulnes (1913), de Alain-Fournier, cuando se analiza y comenta la obra artística de Joseph Cornell. Cornell se refiere a menudo a la novela en sus diarios y notas para proyectos. Es bien sabido que Cornell sentía una fuerte predilección por la cultura francesa y todo lo relacionado con ella (especialmente del periodo fin-de-siècle), pero tal explicación es demasiado vaga para justificar su interés por esta novela en particular. En este artículo se analiza la relación entre la novela y la obra de Cornell como la manifestación de dos realizaciones del modo pastoral, pues es en el contexto teórico de lo pastoral donde podemos comprender la conexión entre ambas, que da como resultado obras de ensamblaje en las que el artista americano parece reproducir las experiencias de Meaulnes en la novela.

Palabras clave: Joseph Cornell – Alain-Fournier – pastoral – relación entre arte y literatura – arte de ensamblaje.

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References

Alain-Founier. The Lost Domain (Le Grand Meaulnes). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2013 (1913). Kindle Edition.

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Cornell, Joseph. Theater of the Mind: Selected Diaries, Letters and Files. (Mary Ann Caws, ed.). New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993.

Empson, William. Some Versions of Pastoral. New York: New Directions. 1974.

Eliot, T. S. “The Waste Land”. The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume 2. New York – London: Norton and Company, 1994.

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Stewart, Susan. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1993.

Tanning, Dorothea. Between Lives. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2004.

Published

2016-07-09

How to Cite

Bonilla, M. J. (2016). Pastoral Bric-a-brac: Joseph Cornell’s Artistic Responses to Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes. The Grove - Working Papers on English Studies, 22. Retrieved from https://revistaselectronicas.ujaen.es/index.php/grove/article/view/2517