VOICES AND WAYS OF SILENCE IN THE WRITINGS OF HENRY BAUCHAU
VOICES AND WAYS OF SILENCE IN THE WRITINGS OF HENRY BAUCHAU

Summary/Abstract: In Henry Bauchau’s imaginary as in every literary genre he approaches, the repetitive use of mineral references structures a metadiscourse on the verbal matter he places between silence and emergence. The poet aims to ‘write in such a manner/ barely on the verge of keeping quiet’, to reach ‘a voice of stone’ which no longer signifies mutism but concentration of silence, strengthening the poetic word. For Bauchau, silence is a symptom for a writing which speaks about the strive of being alive, it is the necessary moment that enables clarity of thinking but translates at the same time an important discursive effect, the condition for staying alert, itself connected to Simone Weil’s thinking.It is a ‘silence-écoute’, silence-listening one could find in liturgies, essential for the thinking stream and for the awakening of an inner voice and a new consciousness. When considered a pause in the discourse, silence is inquiring, which makes the lack of words become expressive. This would explainBauchau’s need to ‘keep quiet, calm down’, in order to ‘polish and sharpen the spirit’.As a whole, Bauchau’s writings show an equally restless war against silence and a search for silence,a permanent swing between wanting to speak and needing to keep quiet.

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