La femme et l’œuvre: Robbe-Grillet

Abstract

This article deals with recent publications (2012) on Alain Robbe-Grillet’s work: a collection of letters and a biographical piece published by the writer’s widow, Catherine Robbe-Grillet. The article falls within the so-called ‘poetics of confidence’ studies, and draws particular attention to its impact on the reception of the work, given that this ‘confidence’ is provided by the writer’s wife, a writer herself. The content of the confidences is subject to some rhetoric of expression filtered by a number of intertextual relations, which place biographically inspired writings on the border of impossible practices. This is especially so in the case of Robbe-Grillet’s narrative, which is characterized by the successive shift of the referent.