The adventure of thought sometimes makes the best adventure novels. Beneath its severe approach, the theoretical essay is a literary genre like any other, with its figures, its dramaturgy and its suspense effects. The theoretical essay, when it works to the best of its style and spirit, can give the same indescribable reading pleasure as a work of fiction or a poem.
The singular work of the French theorist Gérard Genette thus gives me the excellent pretext for an investigation into the work of style in the theoretical essay. In what way is the unfolding of a thought staged? What dangers are we exposed to when we abuse metaphors? What are the powers of neology? What happens when writing in the second degree abandons its overhanging position? More importantly, what is the use of humour in theory?
This walk through Genette’s work will bring us face to face with some great people: Barthes, Proust, Flaubert, Paulhan, Borges (of course), as well as a host of theorists. Soon enough, we will realize that the art of rhetoric, which we thought had been buried by the avant-gardes of the twentieth century, was preparing, through literary studies, for a spectacular return. This book basically poses a question as disturbing as it is liberating: what if theoretical essay was the future of literature?
