Abstract EN:

This series of analyses attempts to unravel the complex bundles of textual threads woven through the works of three contemporary dramatists. It exposes the self-conscious act of writing and the conditions of textual production that create the theatrical fiction of the three authors. The thesis takes the shape of brief investigations that at times follow unpredictable routes through the texts. They highlight the imagery used by each author, in particular, metaphors referring to techniques of dressmaking, and they demonstrate the processes of intertextual stitching, mending and weaving that construct these three oeuvres. Moreover, they seek to uncover the text’s modus operandi, namely the writing processes and techniques elaborated by each writer to construct systems of meaning. The intention of this approach is to find an appropriate position and distance from which to read the dramatic texts, since they appear to evade linearity. Indeed, reading texts by Valère Novarina, Noëlle Renaude and Daniel Lemahieu involves a veritable exercise in orienteering: how does the reader navigate through the textual strata and multiple ramifications offered by the text’s infinitesimal variations in style and meaning ; where are the reader’s reference points on a page of text where the author seems to zoom cinematically in and out by altering typography and page layout ? By seeking a direction through the text, the reader must necessarily assume the role, with the author, of co-creator. The text requires the reader to construct a dissipated unity from the textual fragments, and to re-stitch a text that is often presented in tatters by the author.