André Gide ou l’ironie de l’écriture by Martine Maisani-Léonard (review)

HUMANITIES 447 teur, auquel Ie lecteur ne tarde pas as'identifier, remet constamrnent en question Ie proces du postulat initial: 'Je parle donc je suis: prod"s auquel il ne peut adherer completement. Souvenir d'un monde adamique, intense, absolu, les mots ne sont que Ie pale reflet de l'etymon spirituel d'un age d'or revolu. Les mythes, comme les metaphores, expliquent de fa~on fabuleuse ou imagee ce que la linguistique moderne a trop souvent enferme dans la technicite de son metalangage. Ainsi Ie triangle possible/impossible /visqueux reprend-il de fa~on plus imagee, les termes de grammatical /non-grammatical/a-grammatical, et la projection obstinee de I'etre dans les mots reprend-elle Ie mythe de Sisyphe, s'epuisant et s'extenuant dans un faire langagier, dans un 'peesia' toujours it refaire et it reprendre . On ne peut pas rester insensible it la revalorisation des aspects ludiques du langage: amour, jeu, conversation, theatre - aspects qui echapent totalement aux analyses structuralistes ou transformationnelles . Il n'est pas etonnant de retrouver au detour des paragraphes la silhouette de Corneille, prince par excellence du discours dramatique, du discours qui semble se faire au moment meme de son elocution. On ne peut pas juger de cet essai en termes theoriques ou techniques: on l'aime ou on ne l'aime pas. On aura compris la sympathie que nous lui portons, pour la fraicheur naive (et savante) qui anime ses propos: il est parfois bon de rapeUer que la diachronie, par exemple, s'explique aussi au niveau du vecu psychologique, sensible, dans I'intimite des intermittences du cee ur et de l'esprit. (DANIEL F. JOURLAIT) Martine Maisani-Leonard. Andre Gide OIl l'ironie de I'tcriture. Les Presses de l'Universite de MontreaL 273· $13.75 Until very recently, structuralist critics have with few exceptions neglected the works of Andre Gide. Now, as the word ticriture in the title of this new work by Martine Maisani-Leonard readily indicates, a full volume of textual analysis in accordance with modern methodology is filling this gap in Gidean studies. The critical methods of Maisani-Leonard align themselves primarily with the linguistic preoccupations of Emile Benveniste and, in particular , with his opposition of discours and histoire. But she wisely goes beyond a single model of modern criticism and even relies heavily on the old notion of 'genre' when she limits her study to the narrative techniques of the Gidean recit which she redefines as a fictional work told in the first person singular and the passe simple. By rejecting the traditional editors' classification, she is in a most satisfying way able to add Paludes (usually called a sotie) and EI Hadj (published as a traite) to the 448 LETTERS IN CANADA 1976 nine more obvious works that form her corpus. Incidentally, she capitalizes Recit when referring to the genre in order to differentiate it from the less specialized recit, as in the 'recit' or 'tale' told by a character in one of the works. Within the framework of the discourslhistoire opposition, MaisaniLeonard groups and regroups her eleven texts according to the presence or absence of various narrative/linguistic/stylistic attributes. Her use of modern terminology and schematic charts assumes at least a little knowledge of structuralism on the part of the reader; but a reader more interested in her methodology - clearly explained and ripe for imitation than in Andre Gide should be forewarned that a prior close reading of the Recits is absolutely obligatory in order to profit from this book. Maisani-Leonard's methodology leads her into a convincing, detailed analysis of such structural and stylistic elements as the texts' preambles, the function of the passe simple and the passe compose, the present tense, direct and indirect reported speech, and temporal adverbs. Each one of these sections can serve as an impressive complement to Stephen Ullmann's study of Gide's imagery in The Image in the Modern French Novel, but the organization of Maisani-Leonard's book according to the various narrative problems disperses the treatment of each text throughout the whole book and, in spite of the index, diminishes its usefulness as a tool for readers interested in only...