The Bibliothèque de la Pléiade: The Social History of the Making of Cultural Goods and “Literary Giants”

This project aims to examine — through “la Bibliothèque de la Pléiade”, the French publishing world’s most prestigious book collection made of Bible paper, leather cover, and gold — the relation between the choices made to publish some literary works and the formation of “literary giants”, considered authors that achieve the status of being called “classics”. Although it pledges to democratize reading, this book series counts only two authors of Afro-European descent. It also has a smattering of works by female authors: of the 250 authors in la Pléiade, 15 are female writers (only 6%). Therefore, it appears crucial, on the one hand, to study the Pléaide’s editorial policy to understand the reasoning behind the choice of authors to publish and the perpetuation of what Pierre Bourdieu calls “the eternal masculine” in the creation of “literary giants”. On the other hand, it is important to explain the consequence of the systematic exclusion of the “Other” (non-white-male writer) by the literary canon.

Faculty Supervisor:

Daniel Vaillancourt

Student:

Partner:

Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Education

University:

The University of Western Ontario

Program: