Image & Narrative (Aug 2010)

The Hero and His Shadow

  • Simona Micali

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 3
pp. 99 – 110

Abstract

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<p align="left"> </p><p><strong><span style="font-size: small;">Abstract (E): </span></strong><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;">This essay traces the literary theme of the ‘disobedient shadow’ from the Romantic archetype to its adaptation nineteenth- and twentieth-century fantastic fiction. Focusing on texts in which the shadow takes up its own identity, becoming an uncanny double of its master, it is argued that the development of this theme is closely linked with the evolution of the human subject through the epistemological and cultural revolutions of the last two centuries. </span></span></p><strong><span style="font-size: small;"><strong><font size="3"><p>Abstract (F):</p></font></strong></span><p> </p></strong><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;">Cet article retrace l’évolution du thème littéraire de l’ « ombre désobéissante », de l’archétype romantique aux mutations ultérieures dans la fiction fantastique des 19</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: xx-small;">e </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;">et 20</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: xx-small;">e </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;">siècles. Il examine un corpus où l’ombre assume son indépendance, devenant un double de son maître dans un esprit que l’on sait être maintenant celui de l’inquiétante étrangeté. L’article soutient l’idée que le développement du thème à travers les âges a beaucoup à voir avec les transformations du sujet humain tel que l’ont façonné les révolutions culturelles et épistémologiques depuis deux cents ans. </span></span>

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