“Petits traités”, thésaurus d’une œuvre

Abstract

I propose that Petits traites be considered the thesaurus of Pascal Quignard’s œuvre, in which the main elements of his style combine into a first original and recognizable expression: a fragmentary form, the appearance of a lexicon that will become inseparable from his works, the affirmation of a theory of literature as rooted in ancient, animal gestures, the intrication of the speculative and the narrative, the exploration of literary and cultural memory, the preoccupation with origins. I show that Petits traites resonates with just about every book that follows, and I argue that the memory thus activated functions in a musical manner in the author and in the reader.