« Orlando and the power of the false »

Résumé En

This paper deals with the power of falsehood in Orlando and borrows from the work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, and especially his concept of ‘simulacrum'. Indeed, Deleuze conceives of the simulacrum as an image bearing only an external and deceptive resemblance to a putative model, contrary to the copy, which is defined by an essential relation of resemblance to the model it is made to stand in for. The simulacrum therefore has to do with representation, but in a way which does not aim at faithfulness but rather subverts the model-copy relation. In the light of these reflections, I consider the way in which Orlando plays with representation, puts forward masks and illusory appearances, and thereby affirms the power of the false, which is also the creative power of art as a process that paradoxically produces the real.