The robinsonade Two Years’ Vacation by Jules Verne as an intertextual node between The High Mountains (Z. Papantoniou) and La Vie de Collège en Angleterre (A. Laurie)

Abstract

The well-known collective robinsonnade Deux ans de vacances (1888) by Jules Verne is examined as a children's utopia and, simultaneously, as a latent generative text — an 'unavowed hypotext' (hypotexte inavoué) — for the work Ta Psila Vouna (The High Mountains) by Zacharias Papantonios. This canonical reader of the Demotic movement is considered the Greek version of children's utopia. Intertextual echoes and related scene sequences are traced and interpreted, such as the ascent to the summit by the two central, partly autobiographical heroes — Briant and Fanis respectively. The phenomenon of transvalorisation is identified: the French hero embodies the spirit of positivism and scientific inquiry, while the Greek hero reflects a tendency towards aestheticism and individual introspection. Both texts are products of authors deeply engaged with the political realities of their time. They depict organised children's societies that, at times, mirror - in inverted form - the difficult political situation of their respective countries. Furthermore, Verne's work is considered as a broader intertextual node, into which converge earlier robinsonnades as well as André Laurie's novel La vie de Collège en Angleterre (1885). From this author - an exiled participant in the Paris Commune and a close, secret collaborator of P.-J. Hetzel - Verne borrows certain aspects of his central hero and an implicit critique of the English educational system.