Rhétorique souveraine
This study begins by examining the very particular conception of reason underpinning the speculative rhetoric invented in Petits traités, then taken up and pursued in Dernier royaume. It then goes on to examine how this rhetoric calls into question the origins of the authority of knowledge; an autho...
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| Pubblicato in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/studifrancesi, |
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| Autore principale: | |
| Natura: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lingua: | Français |
| Pubblicazione: |
Studi Francesi
2017
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| Accesso online: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Riassunto: | This study begins by examining the very particular conception of reason underpinning the speculative rhetoric invented in Petits traités, then taken up and pursued in Dernier royaume. It then goes on to examine how this rhetoric calls into question the origins of the authority of knowledge; an authority that Quignard constantly invokes in his texts in order to reveal the irreducible degree of uncertainty that knowledge entails. This revelation is fundamental. Quignard uses it to pursue what is undoubtedly the main aim behind his rhetorical inventions: allowing thought to become individual again. Attempting to restore individualisation in this way implies a certain sovereignty of the author, whose features are sketched out in the successive authorial figures constructed and cultivated from one book to the next. The author’s sovereign authority requires an opisthotonic dimension from his readers, a point at which they agree to give themselves over to the other, in what can only be a total form of relinquishment. The speculative rhetoric creates a relationship between author and readers that, for the latter, consists less in submitting to the peremptory authority of the former, than in giving themselves over to this authority in order to better receive an individualised form of thought. In this sense, the relationship between the author and his reader entails something of the order of the masochist contract, explored by Quignard in his early work. |
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