De l’imaginaire médiéval à l’imaginaire romanesque: l’aristocratie selon Genet dans la « trilogie autobiographique »

Abstract

The notion of aristocracy occupies a central place in the imaginary construction of self, world and writing which Jean Genet developed, and which he subsequently explored in his writings, particularly the autobiographical trilogy consisting of The Miracle of the Rose (1946), Our Lady of the Flowers (1948) and The Thief’s Journal (1949). The hierarchy which he here establishes draws its references from the feudal world and successively places at the top the figures of the knight, the prince and the saint. Yet in the texts where mystification constitutes a struggle which aims to replace the bourgeois enemy’s values with those of Genet himself, the poet is still predominant, and is capable, through his ability to manipulate words, to create a universe which corresponds to his personal aspirations and desires. And for the poete maudit which Genet desires to become, the most important model has the traits of the infamous lord, alternately inflexible executioner and atoning victim, embodied in exemplary fashion in Gilles de Rais.