INTERTEXTUALITY IN SYLVIE GERMAIN'S BRÈVES DE SOLITUDE: ETHICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES

Abstract

Epidemics sometimes provide the subject of a literary work. It is the case, for example, of Sylvie Germain who chooses to treat the coronavirus in Brèves de solitude (2021), opus considered as one of the first novels having approached this event. What is remarkable in this work, it is especially the fact of drawing frequently in a set of texts belonging to different artistic genres (literature, song, cinema, plastic arts...) in order to communicate an original vision of this pandemic. We are interested here in studying the use of intertextuality (in the broad sense of this notion) in this novel: what forms of intertextuality are employed in this novel? What ethical issues are assigned to this use? What philosophical stakes are attributed to it?  The answers to these questions will lead to reveal on the one hand the call to change our view of our fellow human beings and of life. It is on this condition, thinks the writer, that would be substituted to a negative vision of the man and the world, a positive re-reading where fraternity, joy, poetry, appreciation of the present and rehabilitation of the sensoriality and the sensuality, would be essential values. It will also be shown that through intertextuality, the novelist maintains that art allows not only to make life acceptable and beautiful, but also to overcome the darkness and anguish generated by the pandemic.