On the crossroads of literature and science. The essayist and the scientific field in Huxley, Ortega y Gasset and

The general aim of this thesis is to provide a study of the interdiscursive relations (Maingueneau 2004) between literature and science during the period of 1900-1950. More specifically we will study these interactions within the essayistic work of three writers – Paul Valéry (1871-1945), José Ortega y Gasset (1873-1955) and Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) – whose fascination with science has often been analyzed in the past (Robinson-Valéry 1983; García Aguilar 1995; Deery 1996).  

The first part of the thesis aims to describe the activities of these writers and more precisely the way in which these activities form their ‘self-image’ (or ‘posture’, as it has been tagged by Meizoz 2009). Looking at their activities, we see that Valéry, Ortega and Huxley had both personal and professional relations with several scientists of their time, such as Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble or Marie Curie. The question we wish to tackle is therefore: how can this proximity between writers and scientists be explained? Our hypothesis is that the these relations can be fruitfully understood in the context of their identity as ‘intellectuals’ (Ory et Sirinelly 1986; Charle 1991; Collini 2006), a community in which scientists, philosophers and writers interact beyond the boundaries of their disciplines.  

The second part of the thesis will focus on the essayistic writing of these writers. As a genre, the essay seems to suit the intellectual, as it is a type of text that allows writers to go beyond their discipline and to develop a discourse ‘between literature and science’ (Glaudes & Louette 1999; Macé 2006; Langlet 2015). According to this view, the essay is approached to science, because it proposes a ‘non-fictional’ argumentation, yet at the same time it cannot be assimilated to science, as it also has an aesthetic or literary dimension (e.g. its style). In the second part of the thesis we wish to study how this ‘in-betweenness’ occurs within Valéry’s, Ortega’s and Huxley’s essays and more importantly how it can be explained. We wish to defend a ‘pragmatic’ approach of the essay, which means that we will deal with it as a ‘genre de discours’ (Maingueneau 2007). According to this concept the essay genre can be understood as one of the (many) activities typical for intellectuals. Our hypothesis is that the essay’s ambiguous relation with science can be explained as a side-effect of the essay’s belonging to a community that allows for interactions between science, literature and philosophy.

The third part of the thesis will focus on the literary conception of these writers, which has been the subject of a few studies (Wagner 2001; Marx 2002). Our aim is to complement these studies by confronting their ideas on literature with their ideas on science. In fact, Valéry, Ortega and Huxley not only write about literature and science separately, but they also often approach the first to the second, for example by comparing writers to scientists (Serpieters 2016). Our hypothesis is that – even though these writers strictly distinguish between literature and science – their conception of science is very often representative for their ideas on literature.