THE BAROQUE-STYLE POETICS OF MARIE-CLAIRE BLAIS

PETR KYLOUSEK LA POETIQUE BAROQUISANTE DE MARIE-CLAIRE BLAIS (THE BAROQUE-STYLE POETICS OF MARIE-CLAIRE BLAIS) In comparing the novels of the 1960s and those of the last period, the article proposes to identify some elements of Marie-Claire Blais's baroque-style poetics. The analysis attempts to hone in on mechanisms that create tensions, including the relation between writing and reality; semantic, grammatical or narrative discordances; a simultaneously antinomical and fusional imaginary realm; and fragmentation, contradicted by the totalizing vision of the harmonia mundi. The dynamic of affirmation/negation that seems to constitute the novelist's "semantic gesture" is part of the baroque-style tendencies of Quebecois literature.