FIGURES DE L’HISTOIRE DANS LA PROSE NARRATIVE FRANÇAISE CONTEMPORAINE.

This paper is based upon an historical hypothesis which could be formulated as such : the privilege granted to indirect modes of signifying in contemporary French narrative prose by the violence of XX^th century’s history. Hence the interest of the stylistic notion of figure (of speech), which implies that literary uses of figures elaborate, implicitly, a reflection on history : that is to say that literary history – as history of aesthetic forms – should also be an history of figures. This paper aims to sketch such a study, by choosing three examples (three figures, and three contemporary oeuvres): syllepsis (illustrated by Jean Rouaud’s novels), hyperbaton (which analysis is based upon some narratives by Claude Simon and Laurent Mauvignier) and allegory (here exemplified by Antoine Volodine’novels). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]