Brutality and Representation (M.-T. Mathet ed.). - Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics

French Literature Reviews - 2026

Brutality and Representation (M.-T. Mathet ed.).
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics

Brutalité et représentation,
edited by Marie-Thérèse Mathet,
L'Harmattan,
collection « Champs visuels », 2006
368 p.

In recent years, current events have made violence a central research topic in literary studies. This volume approaches the question from a specific angle, seeking to bring to light—beyond the mere theme—the necessity of analyzing narrative devices. Following L'Écran de la représentation, La Scène, and L'Incompréhensible, the Lettres, Langages et Arts laboratory continues its reflection here on the modes of articulation between fiction and reality. Reality no longer interrogates literature from the perspective of mimesis (what are the markers of a narrative's truthfulness? to what extent does fiction differ from testimony?), but rather as a symptomatic irruption into the text and its structures of non-modelizable, erratic elements: reality points to the structural flaws of the narrative.

The idea is not new. However, the days are gone when one could be satisfied with the "little true fact" (« petit fait vrai ») to account for the reality effect in literature. What we must perceive and recover is the violence of the world, a violence that manifests itself as brutality. Is brutality the symptomatic form that violence takes in order to achieve representation? Or rather, paradoxically, does violence not already constitute a mediated form of what first manifested outside of any system of signification, as a raw, brutal irruption of reality, defying and even ignoring every code and model? Here, literature confronts its own reverse, that point of annihilation where not only culture, but the subject itself is threatened.

Following the research conducted in L'Incompréhensible, the first part of this volume, « Incomprehensible and Brutal » (« Incompréhensible et brutalité »), outlines a symptomatology of brutality in the deconstructive face-off that pits it against the hermeneutic aims of the text. Brutality is first and foremost that which escapes understanding, and it is in the flaws and fracture points of the text that it must be sought.

Yet, in a certain way, brutality stages itself, or more precisely must—or should—stage itself so that the narrative can nevertheless represent it, despite the unnamable to which it is tethered. The second part of the book, « Brutality and the Political » (« La Brutalité et le politique »), confronts this impossible scene, where intimate violation and political stakes and space are summoned and superimposed.

Consequently, it is no longer merely a question of what, within the scene, forms a picture independent of any discourse. The very space of representation becomes problematic in order to manifest brutality. Beyond the circumstantial theme of violence, bringing this space into being becomes the challenge of what we wish to define here as a « narrative device » (« dispositif de récit »). The third part of the book, « From Poetics to the Patch » (« De la poétique au pan »), sketches the path that should lead from poetics to taking into account that which, much like the little patch of yellow wall before Bergotte, creates a striking fragment (« fait pan »), not without risk…

To learn more :

Back cover :
http://www.univ-montp3.fr/~pictura/BrutaliteRepresentation.php

Introduction :
http://www.univ-montp3.fr/~pictura/Brutalite/Invisible.php

Table of Contents

Foreword : Marie-Thérèse MATHET, « Raw, Brutal, Brutality » (« Brut, brutal, brutalité »)
Introduction : Stéphane LOJKINE, « Invisible Brutalities. Towards a Theory of Narrative » (« Brutalités invisibles. Vers une théorie du récit »)

Incomprehensible and Brutal
1. François DUTRAIT, « Incomprehensible Brutality? » (« Incompréhensible brutalité ? »)
2. Anne-Marie LEFEBVRE, « Balzac and Brutality: From Incomprehensible Sacrifice to Brutal Revelation » (« Balzac et la brutalité : de l'incompréhensible sacrifice à la révélation brutale »)
3. Danielle WIECKOWSKI , « Brutality on a Platter: The Wedding of Herodias » (« Brutalité sur un plat : Les Noces d'Hérodiade »)
4. Mireille RAYNAL, « Plasticity of the Brutal Text: Pierre Michon's “Form at the Mercy of All” and René Char's “Broken Forms” of the “Offensive Poem” » (« Plasticité du texte brutal : la “forme corvéable à merci” de Pierre Michon et les “formes rompues” du “poème offensant” de René Char »)

Brutality and the Political
5. Jean-Pierre ZUBIATE, « Poetic Brutalities in Modern Times: Between Power and Potency » (« Brutalités poétiques aux temps modernes : entre pouvoir et puissance »)
6. Pierre SOUBIAS, « Kourouma: Writing and Brutality » (« Kourouma : l'écriture, la brutalité »)
7. Pierre-Yves BOISSAU, « Violence in the City and Poetics of Brutality: A Little Tenderness in This World of Brutes » (« Violences dans la cité et poétiques de la brutalité : un peu de tendresse sur ce monde de brutes »)
8. Lionel RUFFEL, « The Raw and the Remainder in Antoine Volodine's Fictions » (« Le brut, le reste dans les fictions d'Antoine Volodine »)

From Poetics to the Patch
9. Catherine GRALL, « The Tragic Aspect of Brevity: Brutality in Selected Short Stories by Kleist and Hofmannsthal » (« L'aspect tragique de la brièveté : la brutalité dans quelques nouvelles de Kleist et de Hoffmannsthal »)
10. Marie-Thérèse MATHET, « Supernatural or Brutality: Barbey d'Aurevilly's L'Ensorcelée » (« Surnaturel ou brutalité : L'Ensorcelée de Barbey d'Aurevilly »)
11. Anne-Lise BLANC, « Brutality in Claude Simon » (« La brutalité chez Claude Simon »)
12. Françoise GAILLARD, « Allegory of a Fin-de-Siècle Phantasy: Courbet, The Origin of the World » (« Allégorie d'un fantasme fin de siècle : Courbet, L'Origine du monde »)
13. Arnaud RYKNER, « The Spasms of the Substrate: The Brutality of the Patch from Balzac to Sarraute » (« Les spasmes du subjectile : brutalité du pan de Balzac à Sarraute »)

Conclusion : Philippe ORTEL, « Between Effraction and Emergence: The Aesthetics of Brutality » (« Entre effraction et émergence : esthétique de la brutalité »)

BOOK AWAITING A REVIEWER FOR ACTA Fabula.

The relationship between literature and reality has long been a central concern in critical inquiry, moving beyond traditional questions of mimesis to examine how texts incorporate erratic or disruptive elements. Within modern literary studies, the representation of violence often extends past mere thematic inclusion, challenging the structural limits of narrative and fiction. Scholars frequently investigate how narrative forms adapt when confronted with material that resists conventional signification, probing the boundary between symbolic order and raw experience.

This collection explores how literary works negotiate the presence of brutality through specific narrative devices and formal structures. Contributors examine the tensions between comprehension and incomprehension, political spaces, and the shift from poetics to fragmentary representation across various texts and authors. Readers interested in contemporary critical approaches to aesthetics and the articulation of violence within narrative frameworks may find this volume relevant.