A Diary: The Genesis of a Certain Writing Practice Cover Image

Dziennik: geneza pewnej praktyki piśmiennej
A Diary: The Genesis of a Certain Writing Practice

Author(s): Philippe Lejeune
Contributor(s): Lucyna Mazur (Translator)
Subject(s): Epistemology, Philosophy of Language, Hermeneutics
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: genetic criticism; diary;

Summary/Abstract: How can one study the genesis of a text written straightaway which would lose its authenticity value if it were corrected? Such a text is the evidence of a practice, so that transforming it into a work (especially a published one) is likely to impoverish and disfigure it. This article intends to show that if Genetic Criticism has little leeway, it still has room to maneuver: preparatory notes and editing on the same day, intertextual situations (reading notes, correspondence quotations, etc), analysis of the progressive transformations of the diary’s rhythms, the diarist’s writing about rereading, recopying his journal… Past this point, the diary becomes either an autobiography (a selection or composition of the diary by the author him/herself) where Genetics has ample room to perform, or a publication.

  • Issue Year: 2019
  • Issue No: 39
  • Page Range: 77-94
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: Polish