Les Fleurs de Tarbes ou La Terreur dans les lettres

by Jean Paulhan

"L'auteur voudrait découvrir s'il n'existerait pas, des mots au sens et du langage brut à la pensée, des rapports réguliers et à proprement parler des lois - dont la littérature évidemment tirerait grand profit [...] C'est à de telles lois en effet que se réfère ouvertement tout écrivain, sitôt qu'il juge et tranche [...] Ainsi les linguistes et métaphysiciens ont-ils soutenu tantôt (avec les Rhétoriqueurs) que la pensée procédait des mots, tantôt (avec les Romantiques et Terroristes) les mots de la pensée - toutes opinions apparemment fondées sur les faits, patientes, savantes, et néanmoins si lâches et contradictoires qu'elles donnent un grand désir de les dépasser.L'art que j'imagine avouerait naïvement que l'on parle, et l'on écrit, pour se faire entendre. Il ajouterait qu'il n'est point d'obstacle à cette communion plus gênant qu'un certain souci des mots. Puis, qu'il est malaisé de persécuter ce souci une fois formé, quand il a pris allure de mythe ; mais qu'il est expédient au contraire de prendre les devants et l'empêcher de naître."Jean Paulhan.

Genres: Philosophy, France, Literary Criticism, Theory

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

Jean Paulhan était un écrivain, traducteur littéraire et éditeur français. De 1925 à mi-1940 et de 1953 à 1968 il a dirigé La Nouvelle Revue française (NRF), la principale revue littéraire d'Europe de cette période.

Jean Paulhan was a French writer, literary translator and editor. From 1925 to 1940 an from 1953 to 1968 he was the editor of La Nouvelle Revue française (NRF), the leading literary magazine from this period in Europe.

Reviews

[Jeroen Vandenbossche · Rating 3 out of 5]

Réflexion fascinante mais parfois un peu obscure sur le poids de la tradition, la recherche de l’originalité et le rôle du langage, de la rhétorique et des conventions génériques dans la littérature post-romantique. A méditer…

[Michael A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique book in which Paulhan himself admits he didn't expect the book to end up the way it does. Paulhan's text develops as you read it. My interpretation of the text was that Paulhan is essentially a kind of meta-literary criticism, in that he criticizes literary critics as well as authors. He makes a distinction between "Terror" and "Rhetoric".

Rhetoric seems to be cliches: sentences, stanzas, entire texts that seem to possess a banality that is ruthlessly attacked by the "Terrorist writer". Terror seems to be (as Paulhan says) "a way of doing things", that is, writing. The Terrorist writer wants to purify and cleanse all writing of cliches and strive for originality at all costs, sacrificing everything in order to obtain this. Paulhan also asserts that the Terrorist "reduces language to thought".

Paulhan seems to be on the "side" of Rhetoric, claiming that a lot of people still find emotional resonance in the banality of phrases, and I got the sense that the Terrorist writers' goal was ultimately impossible. But Paulhan has his criticisms of Rhetoric as well, which ultimately leads him down a thorny path in which one suspects Paulhan is becoming a kind of Terrorist - I think this is what leads him to the last sentence of the book in which he states to pretend he has said nothing at all.

Packed inside this small, dense yet readable book are very good concepts about language vis-a-vis literature. It sort of reminds me of a continuation of Saussure and a proto-Late Wittgenstein, but admittedly I know very little about either.

I think one flaw is that this is not a book that really criticizes texts outside of France; it is pretty much a meta-critique of French literature/literary criticism. I think the only non-French author he refers to is Joyce, and it isn't often. But I don't think Paulhan intended it to be anything more - in fact, it seems like the book escaped his grasp. But in the end, like Paulhan states, the "novel always catches up with itself"....

[Chloé · Rating 2 out of 5]

Non honnête c'était chiant