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Over the last few decades, in the wake of the ‘Ethical Turn’, contemporary literature has been examined through the prism of the ethics of alterity. Yet, this may not be consis­tently the case with Victorian and Modernist literature, since relatively few of the authors of those periods have elicited such critical and ­theoretical scrutiny. The articles in this volume set off to re-read Victorian and Modernist literature in the light of the ethics of alterity and investigate whether the post-Auschwitz, contemporary period breaks away from or favours lines of continuity with the productions of the earlier era. It also strives to address works which do not belong to the canon, focusing alternately on great authors and less known artists, on what has been termed ‘minor’ texts or genres that are less visible than the novel. Approaching literature by examining the relations between ethics and aesthetics, even while adopting an ethical approach, helps the authors in this volume contribute to revising the contemporary, Modernist and Victorian canon in English Literature.

Through its take on ‘the humble’, this volume attempts to reveal the depth and philosophical relevance of literature, its ethical and political dimension as well as its connection to life. Because it can be associated with social class, religion, psychology or ethics, the notion of ‘the humble’ lends itself to diverse types of studies. The papers collected in this volume argue that in the course of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, artists and writers have revisited the term ‘humble’ and, far from treating it as a simple motif, have raised it to the status of an aesthetic category. This category can first foster a better understanding of fiction, poetry, painting, and their representation of precarious lives through various genres and modes. It may also draw attention to neglected or depreciated humble novels or art forms that developed from the Victorian to the contemporary period, through the Edwardian and the modernist eras. Finally, it helps revise assumptions about the literature and art of the period and signals to a poetics of the humble. The works of art examined here explore the humble as a possible capacity and ethical force, a way of being and acting.

Considering literature and the arts through the lens of the humble implies adopting a cross-disciplinary approach. Because it can be associated variously with social class, religion or psychology, the notion of ‘the humble’ lends itself to diverse types of studies and has been of interest both to sociologists and philosophers. In literature and the arts, ‘the humble’ is a topic that immediately calls to mind the concerns of the Victorian writers who staged low-ranking characters and figures i...

Cette introduction retrace les conditions d’émergence du concept de vie nue, de Foucault à Agamben, mais aussi De Boever ou Lemke. Elle prend par ailleurs soin de contextualiser cet avènement dans le cadre du tournant éthique qui a caractérisé la critique et la théorie littéraire au cours de ces dernières décennies. Elle établit un lien entre la vie nue et des notions afférentes comme celles de dépossession, qui ont été vulgarisées sous la plume d’auteurs tels que Judith Butler et Guillaume Le Blanc. Elle se termine sur une brève évocation des articles publiés dans ce volume. This introduction traces back the conditions of emergence of the concept of bare life, from Foucault, though Agamben to more contemporary followers like De Boever and Lemke. It also takes pains to contextualise the emergence of the notion within the framework of the ethical turn in literature and theory and connects it with related items like dispossession, that have become influential thanks to the works of Judith Butler and Guillaume Le Blanc, among others. It then goes on to give a brief evocation of the articles published in the volume.

Chapitre publié sous le titre "The Poetics of the Suburbs in Ian Sinclair’s London Orbital”; International audience; Drawing on criticism addressing Sinclair's works, this article is inspired by an approach based on the ethics of perception and vulnerability on the one hand, and the politics of (in-)visibility on the other. In the first part I address the issue of the ethics of perception, paying attention to the way in which they are performed in Sinclair's fiction with reference to the categories of attention and consideration. In the second part I address the modalities of social invisibility as inscribed in London Orbital. In the last part, I edge towards a discussion of suburban spaces as sites of vulnerability, addressing more specifically the figures of exposure and dispossession.