BIOFICTION AS A TOOL FOR REACTUALISING HISTORY IN PASCAL QUIGNARD’S PROSE: SPECIFICS OF THE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

Abstract

The article explores the specificity and functionality of the genre of biofiction (fictional biography) in the novels of the contemporary French writer Pascal Quignard. His novels On Wooden Tablets: Apronenia Avitia (1984) and Albucius (1990) are examples of this genre: in them, Quignard represents the fictionalised lives of characters from the times of Ancient Rome and reactualises the ancient history. Biofiction is often interpreted as a genre that reflects the axiology of the postmodern era, with its inherent distrust towards metanarratives, hierarchy, causal logic, and belief in progress. Similarly, in P. Quignard's artistic universe, biofiction performs the function of revising history and understanding the place of human in it. The analysis of the narrative structure of these novels by P. Quignard allows us to conclude that the author's approach to the reactualisation of history is specific. Both works are characterised by fragmentation and lacunarity of composition, inclusion of mystifications, simulacrisation, unreliability of narration, and prevalence of subjective internal focalisation. These peculiarities of their poetics illustrate the writer's personal vision: in his works, Quignard implicitly manifests his distrust of traditional historiography, composed according to the progressive teleological principle and centred around prominent historical figures. In contrast, the author focuses primarily on “small” figures who have been forgotten by the big history or are initially insignificant to it. By deliberately filling the stories of their lives with fictional details, the author expresses scepticism about the potential ability of historiography to represent history truthfully. Instead, for P. Quignard, his individual subjective sense of history comes to the fore. Thus, his task is not to present documentary evidence, but to represent his own intuitive understanding of the historical era (primarily the liminal periods of crisis and the turn of the epoch) and the human perception of the world within it. At the same time, the genre of biofiction in general and its compositional and narrative specificity in Quignard's version appear as a productive tool for implementing these strategies of the writer.