French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. Mollard-Desfour, Le Blanc, Dictionnaire de la couleur.
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics
Annie Mollard-Desfour, Le Blanc. Dictionnaire de la Couleur (Mots et expressions d'aujourd'hui. XXe et XXIe)
(Foreword by Jean-Louis Etienne)
CNRS Éditions, Paris, February 2008, 330 p.
EAN: 9782271066367
€30
Publisher's Overview
From the "perfect white" of the "white body", through the color of snow or lilies, to the flash of "cold steel" (arme blanche), diamonds, and crystal... white hovers between the absence and the sum of all colors, radiance and pallor, opacity and transparency, veering toward or away from its etymological roots (blank: "brilliant").
Through a rich array of symbolic associations, white reveals itself in turn as absolute and ideal, light and matter, bodily hygiene and purity of the soul, neutrality and peace, but also as emptiness and silence, an open space of infinite possibilities!
It bears witness to an obsessive quest for whiteness that continues to define our contemporary society.
Table of Contents
Introduction
White: color and non-color, between light, opacity, and transparency
Associations and symbolism of white
Dictionary. White
White
Derivatives - From Albe to White
Variations on white - From Alaska to Zen
About the Author
A linguist at the CNRS (LDI Cergy-Paris 13), Annie Mollard-Desfour notably contributed to the compilation of the Trésor de la Langue Française. The publication of the early volumes in her color dictionary series—Le Bleu, Le Rouge, Le Rose, and Le Noir—has established her as a renowned expert in contemporary French color vocabulary. She serves as President of the French Color Center (Centre Français de la Couleur).
This volume belongs to a landmark lexicographical series dedicated to the social and cultural history of color vocabulary in the French language. As a linguist at the CNRS who contributed to the monumental Trésor de la Langue Française, Annie Mollard-Desfour approaches color not merely as a physical phenomenon, but as a rich repository of cultural memory. By documenting the evolution of terms, idiomatic expressions, and derivatives associated with white during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the work highlights how language reflects shifting societal values, from notions of hygiene and purity to modern concepts of minimalism and neutrality.
This dictionary serves as an invaluable resource for researchers in linguistics, semiotics, art history, and cultural studies, as well as writers and creative professionals seeking to understand the nuances of French expression. By examining the dualities of white—such as its associations with both absolute presence and complete emptiness, or clinical cleanliness and poetic silence—the book helps readers decode the subtle symbolic codes embedded in contemporary discourse. It ultimately addresses how a single color can simultaneously represent peace, absence, and infinite possibility in modern Francophone culture.