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Verne: invented citations in the VE?

From: Terry Harpold <tharpold~at~acm.org>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 20:54:53 -0400
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

Hi all,

Verne's innumerable minings of literary and scientific precursors (noted in footnotes and, more often in narration and dialogue) are well known. These interpolations are crucial, of course, to the sanctioning of the "realism" of the %roman scientifique% -- Clawbonny repeats the history of Arctic exploraration so that we can see that Hatteras is following in the footsteps of noble precursors; Fergusson reports the tragic fates of earlier European explorers of Africa to demonstrate the wisdom of a transit by balloon; Aronnax and Conseil draw on the resources of Nemo's library to identify and classify the flora and fauna they encounter, etc.

But: are there examples in the _Voyages extraordinaires_ of Verne *inventing out of whole cloth* an apparently historical or scientific source, cited by his narrator or a character in such a way that the reader will necessarily assume that it is "legitimate" -- i.e., nonfictional?

(I leave out of this special case those novels which claim to be written by a character, or those instances in one of the novels in which a (fictional) event of one novel is reported as fact in another -- for example, Nemo being credited with attaining the South Pole in _Le Sphinx des glaces_ -- or those examples in which it seems that Verne may have fudged a bit on the spelling of someone's name or a date: the catalog of African explorers at the opening of _Cinq Semaines_.)

Regards,

TH

--------------------------------
Terry Harpold
Assistant Professor
Department of English
University of Florida

tharpold~at~acm.org
tharpold~at~english.ufl.edu
http://www.nwe.ufl.edu/~tharpold
Received on Tue 01 Jul 2003 - 04:05:07 IDT

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