Pierre Michon et la quête du langage
Pierre Michon – searching for the language

Summary/Abstract: Pierre Michon’s ambition was to write Arthur Rimbaud’s biography, to recreate his portrait starting from biographical sources, but also painted images and photographs, as well as to position the poet among the great writers and, at the same time, to find his own voice. He succeeds in making literary portraits based on iconographical representations. He starts with Rimbaud – to whom he feels the closest – and continues with those who influenced Rimbaud’s destiny (Izambard, Banville, Verlaine), with Balzac, Georges Sand and, finally, Faulkner. For Michon, these portraits are a way to capitalize on his erudition and to express his interest in language innovation with all the possibilities this offers in terms of writing. Thus, he mixes the narrative “I”, formal language, colloquial speech, theological vocabulary and the biographic key in describing his characters. Pierre Michon’s writing can be placed at the intersection of literary genres; he doesn’t write traditional biographies, but fiction-enriched biographies in which self-search is always present.

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