COUPLE

An object of popular fascination, the literary couple has so far strangely eluded academic research, despite the fact that it forces us to rethink the epistemological framework of literary history. It deserves to be studied in its own right, and doing so is the aim of the COUPLE project, Writing with four hands and two pens: a socio-history of the literary couple (1893-present). Our research hypothesis is that the literary couple is inherently paradoxical, in a context in which authorship is understood, in a tradition inherited from Romanticism, as defined by singularity. Each member of the literary couple must assert their singularity and at the same time write as an amorous we to conform to the norms of the institutionalised couple. The literary couple is thus caught in a double bind: the amorous relationship requires it to express itself; the literary field enjoins it to suppress itself. Publications in the last few years renewing the established conception of the couple have made such a research possible. What does the couple do to literature? has become a legitimate question, which COUPLE seeks to answer through a three-fold cross-disciplinary study. The first step will be to retrace the socio-history of the literary couple in French-speaking countries, from the 20th to the 21st century, by combining two approaches: an historical examination of the literary couple will help us to understand the way in which it has evolved from 1893 (when Colette and Willy got married) to the present. Existing academic research on literary pairs, which tends to be written as collated monographs, has done very little towards a historicisation of the literary couple and failed to grasp its complex position, at the crossroads of the literary history of women, the history of the mediatisation of writers, and the history of the couple. This should be combined with a sociological approach, so as to understand the literary strategies used – consciously or unconsciously – by the members of the literary couple in different countries and different economic, social and economic contexts. For practical concerns, the scope of the research will be restricted to French-speaking countries, but it is meant to propose a theoretical model applicable to other countries. The second aim will be to determine the specificity of the literary couple, as opposed to literary pairs made of brothers and/or sisters or friends. Literary criticism has so far tended to use the word couple indiscriminately, to refer to married pairs, siblings, friends or lovers. Conversely, studies in couple sociology have emphasised the extent to which socialisation within the family differs from that among friends or lovers. It is high time to make use of these studies for our understanding of literature. Finally, the third aim will be to appreciate the implications of gender relations on the workings of the literary couple, by comparing opposite- and same-sex couples. The history of the heterosexual literary couple and the respective positioning of its members has obviously been shaped by the evolution of women’s rights. But what of same-sex literary couples? When literary collaboration is unaffected by gender oppression, does it work any differently? To answer these questions, the COUPLE project will draw on the sociology of literature as well as on queer studies. While homosexuality has so far been studied chiefly as a literary theme, approaching it through the prism of the sociology of literature will be a means to explore the public positioning of same-sex writers in the media, and the way in which it is made to bear on the value critics ascribe to their literary output.