Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Theory and Curriculum: 2 charts and a passage

A busy day of translating and reading Chinese literature for my curriculum ended with anxiety as I broach once again the famous essay "The Autobiographical Pact" by Phillip Lejeune. My theory chops are far too soggy to pick up much from a first inspection, but I will leave this entry as a bookmark to come back to this piece again.

Lejeune's chart solving the problem of grammatical problems of person in autobiography



Lejeune's chart combining the proper name of the author with that of the protagonist of the work.


We notice already here what is going to fundamentally oppose biography and autobiography: it is the hierarchichal organization of the relationships of resemblance and identity. In biography, it is resemblance that must ground identity; in autobiography, it is identity that grounds resemblance. Identity is the real starting point of autobiography; resemblance, the impossible horizon of biography.

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