April 15, 2024
This document is linked to :
info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2968-6180
This document is linked to :
info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/0758-3478
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess , All rights reserved
Philippe Corno, « Représentation de la vie psychique dans Les Liaisons dangereuses de Choderlos de Laclos », Elseneur, ID : 10.4000/elseneur.711
Conceiving the letter as the discursive space of a subjective expression of one’s feelings is rather usual in epistolary novels, some works like Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Laclos invite us to consider it as a means and an opportunity to distance oneself from the others and from the self; in other words like a portrayal of one’s inward feelings or of someone else’s. Yet, even though a great number of letters can – in principle – be considered as the story / representation of psychic life in the writing style of Laclos (it can be perfectly controlled in the framework of libertine ethic or unintentionally revealed due to a linguistic naïveté as much as a moral one), finally the patterned discourse on being widespread deceived by oneself on others but most of all by the self – which is progressively developed – do not allow us to get the least genuine representation of the characters’ emotional affects who, because they are language beings and so lying beings tell us how much the truth about the others and about ourselves always escapes.