What Happened, Mr. Ricardou? A Theatre of Metamorphoses. Issue 3 (December 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Meyntjens, Gert-Jan
• Is Part Of: Australian journal of French studies. Volume 55:Issue 3(2018)
• Page Start: 261
• Page End: 273
• Publication Date: 2018-12
• Subjects: French literature -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Frans; Filologie; Littérature française -- Histoire et critique -- Périodiques; French literature; Criticism, interpretation, etc; Periodicals; 840.9
• DOI: 10.3828/AJFS.2018.23
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0004-9468

Abstract

Abstract : This article examines the institutional trajectory and theoretical legacy of Jean Ricardou. I begin by observing the reactions to the news of Ricardou's death in 2016, both in the public press and in elegiac texts that circulated online. I then turn to Ricardou's institutional transformation from theoretical leading man in the sixties to background figure as conseiller at the CCIC from the eighties onwards. In the second part, I exhibit the fundamental aspects of Ricardou's theory and make a distinction between his pre- and post- textique work. I conclude by arguing for a reconsideration of Ricardou's work in light of the current development of writing workshops in France. To conjure up both his trajectory as a public intellectual and his theoretical premises, I use Ricardou's own metaphor of the theater of metamorphoses.