Le « silence bruyant » de Corbière
Corbière’s « noisy silence »

Summary/Abstract: In Les Amours jaunes, Corbière carries out a paradoxical promotion of silence. In fact, the writing features cacophonous poetics. However, the promotion of noise makes it possible to denounce the dysfunction of language. The deceptive experience of communication reveals a wish to implement another mode of emotional transmission. The poet distorts and mocks the romantic tradition to denounce the tricks of a language which is musical and full of imagery. On a quest to find authenticity, he deploys competing and conflicting semiotic layouts which break the textual unity. Renewing the lyrical pact, that fragmentation opens a vacant space that the reader can take over. A reception which is strengthened by the empathic relation between the subject and its recipient is replaced by a formulation based on the evocative power found outside the text. That is definitely a speech ‘addressed’ to the reader but the emotions go through the perception of silence. The formulation of these emotions is suspended, thus letting us read implicitly the mark of its absence. Often considered “unlyrical”, Corbière finds, in the fragile balance between hubbub and silence, an interval filled with the transmission of personal affects.

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