Pascal Quignard ou le faux mélange des genres dans le roman latin Les Tablettes de buis d’Apronenia Avitia

Abstract

Published six years before Albucius (1990), Les Tablettes de buis d’Apronenia Avitia (1984) belongs to the “roman novels” declared by Pascal Quignard hybridizing different literary genres. In 1984, when he speaks of this kind of writting, the author doesn't call it yet “satura” (as later in 1990), but “miscellenea” that cross in particular historical vita with buxi (“tablets”). This essay studies those categorizations and shows that, if the French writer uses old genres, as usual he changes them in his own peculiar manner and builds an imaginary composite latin novel, that doesn't melt but accumulates, without hiding the frictions, many pseudo-antique heterogeneous literary types, just like the human modern and problematic subject he is at this time.