Mâcher des poèmes, croquer des statues. Les faims formelles de Victor Segalen et Claude Lévi-Strauss

Abstract

Claude Lévi-Strauss and Victor Segalen share the same obsession, that of the loss of knowledge, established by the law of thermodynamics as a universal constant. In fact, the journeys they undertake are each based on a quasi-immediate transcription, as a defence mechanism against entropy. In Équipée and Tristes tropiques, the two writers pace their walks with poetry. While Segalen memorises them and draws the formless to allow memories to survive, Lévi-Strauss invents them and draws them in order to exorcise unbalanced form.