Date: 18-19 September 2025

Venue: Bâtiment Olympe de Gouges, 8 Place Paul-Ricoeur, Paris

The work of Vernon Lee (1856-1935), a cosmopolitan British author and essayist who was precociously European-minded, covers a vast field, from neo-Gothic fiction to travel writing, aesthetic theory, theater and political essays. This work establishes a particular dialogue with past and contemporary literary traditions, whether it be fantasy literature (Hauntings, 1890) or authors of the decadent movement such as Oscar Wilde, or even French authors (notably Théophile Gautier, with whom she shares an interest in the art of Antiquity).

But beyond this intertextual dimension, the reader is struck by the essential part played in her production by the discourse on art as a whole — for example in Belcaro (1881) or Renaissance Fancies and Studies (1895) — to such an extent that some short stories are constructed in direct reference to specific paintings or musical pieces, such as the opera Don Giovanni used in “The Virgin of the Seven Daggers.” Similarly, “Amour Dure” reinvents the famous portrait of Lucretia Panciatichi by Bronzino, and “Winthrop’s Adventure” and “A Wicked Voice” are based on the popular myth of the famous castrato Farinelli and his portrait, “Il Farinelli” by Corrado Giaquinto.

We may therefore wonder to what extent the place given to other arts in Lee’s writings (no doubt influenced by the return to Renaissance studies initiated by Walter Pater) results in the construction of truly intermedial aesthetics, which blends literary narrative devices with a broader aesthetics (pictorial and musical) that is evoked and implemented in the texts.

The presence of a plurality of influences in the texts can also be seen at another level, namely in the mythographic approach that is part of the author’s original voice. Vernon Lee very often refers to material from Antiquity or folklore to develop the framework of her stories. For example, “Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady” rewrites the myth of Melusine and Keats’s Lamia. Here again, two levels of analysis can converge.

First, we can examine how this borrowing from myths operates, and what it retains from the original sources. Secondly, we can study how the literary text integrates these mythical tales or traditions, which appear originally in expressive modes (such as oral tradition, or ancient literature) which most often differ from the medium in which they are transposed. The research presented will bear on the modalities of this dialogue between the arts, its motivations (why does Lee choose to revisit certain myths and works from the past?) and the consequences of this rereading on her writing technique. The integration of these intermedial sources be approached as pointing to Lee’s desire to revise an established tradition in a personal, sometimes iconoclastic way, so that these influences do not result in a form of anxiety (after Harold Bloom’s famous phrase) but in renewed creativity.

The following perspectives can be explored in connection with the theme of intermedial dialogue. These suggestions are not exhaustive.

- The relationship between Victorian culture and European art, through Lee’s work

- Stylistic and aesthetic perspectives on intermediality

- Re-reading and mythographic adaptation

- Vernon Lee and the “fin de siècle,” an era of renewal for the discourse on the arts

- British and continental art in Lee’s work

- Redefining generic boundaries through intermediality

Two guest speakers will take part in the conference:

Pr. Sophie Geoffroy (Université de la Réunion, France), founding president of the International Vernon Lee Society and co-editor of The Sibyl, the journal of the IVLS. She has translated Lee's works into French and published numerous essays on Vernon Lee. She is currently the co-editor of the critical edition of Vernon Lee’s correspondence published by Routledge (Selected Letters of Vernon Lee), three volumes of which have already been published.

 Pr. Catherine Maxwell (Queen Mary University, London, UK), co-editor of the Broadview edition of Vernon Lee’s Hauntings and Other Fantastic Tales (2006) and an essay collection, Vernon Lee: Decadence, Ethics, Aesthetics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). She is theauthor of  eight published essays on Vernon Lee and of multiple studies on Aestheticism and Decadence, the visual arts, gender and sexuality, Hellenism and classical myth, and the influence of Romanticism, and co-editor of the MHRA Jewelled Tortoise series. 

Please send your proposals (max. 300 words) and a short biographical note (max. 150 words) by March 1, 2025 to: vernonleeintermediality@gmail.com. Papers can be given in French or in English. The scientific committee will reply by April 1, 2025. 

Conference scientific committee:

• Christophe Gelly (Université Clermont Auvergne)
• Sophie Geoffroy (Université de la Réunion)
• Xavier Giudicelli (Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne)
• Emilie Laurent (Université Clermont Auvergne)
• Laurent Mellet (Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès)
• Laurence Roussillon Constanty (Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour)