May 68: Parodic rehearsals of the future in Lacan and Duras

Abstract

Within the context of May 1968, Lacan’s The Other Side of Psychoanalysis (1969-70) and Duras’ Destroy, She Said (1969) are significant titles. They describe a time of profound socio-political disruption and irruption. They signify a rupture with history that manifests itself in parodic terms, announcing further textual revisions and reversions while bearing witness to a desire for the radicalisation of conceptions of difference. Fifty years on, these works appear as traversed and gathered together by a consistent intentional movement visible through a multiplicity of parodic manoeuvres now perceived as ‘style’. This understanding becomes possible through an interpretation of language that does not suppose a conscious subject who expresses it: ‘style’ speaks itself and ‘it’ writes itself. This is the condition of its transgressive force and authority. It is a style that repudiates the idea of accepted, institutionalised, or canonised form. It is therefore possible to read the style of Lacan and Duras as a symbolic stripping of established socio-political structures that paradoxically unveils more questions than those activated by the May events. This paper explores the capacity to revolutionise in texts by Lacan and Duras produced around May ’68 which have had an enduring impact on literature, literary theory and critical inquiry.