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A Study on Main Characters in J. Giono’s Novel, Angelo

  • Journal of Humanities
  • 2016, (60), pp.463-497
  • Publisher : Institute for Humanities
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : January 8, 2016
  • Accepted : February 2, 2016

Kim Dong-Yoon 1

1건국대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study aims to analyze how main characters in Giono’s novel Angelo are created and constituted essentially from the ethical and aesthetical perspective. It is commonly accepted among many experts of this French novelist that this literary work played a important role in his literary career. The fictional work in question is supposed to be less known in the pubic audience in comparison with the other major works like The Horseman on the Roof of which a well known film was made two decades ago. However this novel seems to be of an importance in terms of prefiguring main characters (essentially Angelo and Pauline) constantly appearing in the following major works. Firstly, Angelo appears as a key character embodying the middle age’s chivalrous values like magnanimity, greatness, noblesse etc. These ethical aspects seem to be taken by and large in the French classical dramas, especially Pierre Corneille’s ones. In this context we would like to highlight that Angelo is being inscribed in this aristocratic moral system as well as in Romantic sensibility. Secondly, two feminine figures showing exceptional qualities (Céline and Pauline) are contributing greatly to the promotion of Giono’s work into a much more achieved one from the aesthetical perspective of the fiction: Céline de Theus is an aristocratic and highly mature personality with a strong sense of honour, while Pauline is presented as a young and pure person valorizing a great sense of simplicity. Thanks to these feminine figures with Angelo, the provençal novelist could create an extraordinary fictional universe in which we the readers can be easily absorbed without any reserves.

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