French Literature Reviews - 2026
É. Grossman, La Défiguration
Other Literary Studies
Évelyne Grossman, La Défiguration. Artaud, Beckett, Michaux, "Paradoxes" series, 128 p., 15 €, ISBN 2.7073.1867.1
Some of the major works of the 20th century—those of Artaud, Beckett, Michaux, and others—distort the established figures of art, writing, and meaning. They disrupt our systems of thought and the tranquil stability of the oppositions that often govern them. In this sense, they partake in a new iconoclasm. They invite us, for instance, to ponder a few troubling questions: faced with contemporary normopathy—that thin veil covering an unconfessable depression—and faced with that socially rewarded gregarious narcissism where everyone seeks recognition in the admiring gaze of a peer just to reflect it back, how can we invent living (plastic, plural) forms of resistance to the image? How can we unburden ourselves from the petrified forms of identity? How can we constantly invent the shifting figures of the representation of self and the other without losing all identity in the process?
Under the heading of defiguration, this work attempts to trace the movement of destabilization that affects the figure in modern texts: the relentless questioning of the forms of truth and meaning, the passion for interpretation.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Unmaking Figures
Being Father-Mothers (Artaud - Balthus)
Created - Decreated - Uncreated: The Defigurations of Samuel Beckett
Henri Michaux's Insectuous Writing
Conclusion: Disidentity
Evelyne Grossman is a professor of modern and contemporary literature at Paris 7.
Evelyne Grossman is a professor of modern and contemporary literature at Paris 7.
She has published:
Artaud / Joyce. Le corps et le texte, Nathan, "Le texte à l'oeuvre" series, 1996.
L'Esthétique de Beckett, Sedes, 1998.
Henri Michaux, le corps de la pensée (collective work, in collaboration with Anne-Elisabeth Halpern and Pierre Vilar), éditions Farrago-Léo Scheer, 2001.
La traversée de la mélancolie (collective work, in collaboration with Nathalie Piégay-Gros), éditions Séguier, 2002.
Artaud, " l'aliéné authentique ", éditions Farrago-Léo Scheer, 2003.
Editions:
Antonin Artaud, Van Gogh le suicidé (edition and preface), L'imaginaire-Gallimard, 2001.
Antonin Artaud, Van Gogh le suicidé (edition and preface), L'imaginaire-Gallimard, 2001.
Antonin Artaud, Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu (edition and preface), Poésie-Gallimard, 2003.
Antonin Artaud, OEuvres, Quarto-Gallimard, 2004.
The concept of defiguration explored in this study relates to the 20th-century aesthetic movement that sought to dismantle established artistic and linguistic norms. By examining the works of Antonin Artaud, Samuel Beckett, and Henri Michaux, the text investigates how literature disrupts conventional systems of thought and the stability of traditional oppositions. This inquiry into the destabilization of the figure addresses the tension between the desire for self-representation and societal pressures such as normopathy and narcissism. Readers interested in the evolution of modern textual forms may find this analysis of identity and representation relevant.
The study situates these authors within a tradition of iconoclasm, focusing on how their writing processes unmake and recreate the figure. By examining the shifting nature of the self, the work highlights a passion for interpretation and the questioning of truth. The analysis traces how these writers navigate the task of inventing plural, living forms of resistance against petrified identities. This approach reflects an intellectual interest in how literature functions as a site for the constant re-negotiation of the relationship between the self and the other in a modern context.