Le texte victorien à l’âge postmoderne : jouvence ou sénescence ? Fingersmith de Sarah Waters et le mélodrame victorien

An impressive number of novels, recreating the Victorian era, have been published over the past three decades. And the trend shows no signs of becoming extinct ! But what do these updated versions of 19th century fictions tell us about the legacy of Victorian literature in the 21st century ? Do they bear witness to its obsolescence ? Or do they, on the opposite, underscore its unimpaired vitality ? After a brief survey of the reception of Victorian fiction in the first half of the 20th century, this article suggests that never before have the novels by Dickens, Braddon or Collins contributed so vividly to rejuvenate literary creativity. The argument is illustrated by taking the example of Sarah Waters’s Fingersmith, published in 2002. Through a contrastive, dialogic method of reading, it can be shown that Waters felicitously weaves together masterly-contrived plots from her Victorian predecessors, in order to sustain suspense, while setting the lesbian issue high on her narrative agenda. Yet, far from tiring today’s readers of Victorian fiction, Waters arouses a genuine interest for its intricacies and obliquity. As a result, the « old » versus « new » opposition is partly neutralised, to give way to a cross-fertilisation between past and present.