Through the lens of Blanchot: New readings of Malraux and Camus.

摘要

This dissertation consists of a rereading of two writers (Malraux and Camus) who are often considered as existentialists. With a blanchotian perspective, I endeavor to read them differently, keeping in mind the analyses of Blanchot on language and literature. Blanchot adds his philosophical background to Mallarme's analyses of the absence at the heart of language to propose an ontological reflection on language and writing. Absence is also central in literature made of language. The idea of absence and disappearance in language and literature as well as the problematic of witnessing and testimony are central to Blanchot's writing and appear also in Malraux and Camus. The first chapter is devoted to a reading of Blanchot's work, particularly to some excerpts of L'Amitie, La Part du feu, Le Pas-au-dela, L'Ecriture du desastre and to his fictional works Le Tres-Haut, L'Arret de mort et L'Instant de ma mort. In order to grasp some of the concepts, we use the analyses of Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, and Theodor Adomo, among others. I then address La Condition humaine and Les Noyers de l'Altenburg by Malraux and highlight some aspects of his writings which have been overlooked by some critics and which tackle essential questions about literature and writing. My reading of Camus is similar; I analyze La Peste and La Chute and emphasize an evolution in both writers from the first book to the second. My reading does not pretend to explain all aspects of these writings, nor to grasp the complexity and extent of Blanchot's work, but rather to offer a different way of reading Malraux and Camus. By stressing the notions of absence and death, the problematic of witnessing, as well as the link between literature and History, light is shed on specific aspects of these books often left in the shadow.