ABSTRACT
Marthe Robert's aim in Roman des Origines et Origines du Roman is to account for the generic diversity of the novel in terms of a reconstruction of the 'Primal Novel'. The key is sought in Freud's category of the 'Family Romance', which Robert defines as 'an expedient to which the imagination resorts in order to resolve the typical crisis in human development which the Oedipus complex provokes'. The nineteenth-century novel is thus defined by Robert as 'the battlefield where two equally fascinating myths of omnipotence fight for supremacy'. The specific device of recurring characters, which Robert explores in some detail, is one precise indication of the Bastard's desire to make his readers 'believe in the "durability" and "reality" of what they are reading'. The Foundling has eventually to 'acknowledge the Oedipal Bastard's more realistic requirements', while the Bastard 'must always consider, to a certain extent, the demands of the earlier self from which he can never be free'.
