IMAGINARY EKPHRASIS IN THE WORK OF PIERRE MICHON
Authors:   Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, Alina_Liana Pintican Petriș 
Published: December 2024

Pierre Michon’s work is an illustration of the contemporary generation of French writers, representing an original work, a mixture of erudition and imaginaton. The problematic perspective of this paper focuses on description, in some of his filiation novels and biographical fictions: Vies Minuscules [Small lives], Vie de Joseph Roulin [The life of Joseph Roulin], Abbés [Abbots], La Grande Beune [The origin of the world], Roi du bois [The King Of The Wood]. If traditionally, in the realistic novel for example, the description was a detachable piece in the text and this sparked a criticism of this textual strategy, in the modern novel, including Michon’s, the description is involved in the narrative process. We studied the interaction between the narrative sequence and the description, ‘two structural types in continuous interaction’ as describer by Philippe Hamon (Hamon, 1981, p. 97).
We shall have a look at the description as means of designating things, to ensure the presence of knowledge on the world in the texts of fiction. A theoretical course on the description and the descriptive is necessary before setting out the means by which this ‘figure’ is accurate in the spatial and chronological construction of Pierre Michon’s writing. We shall analyze the technique of hypotypose and its role in the above-mentioned works. A subcategory of the description is the landscape. The experience of rural landscape enables to reach the depth of the countryside, the intimacy of the recall and the memory of the people who inhabit it. The integration of the character in the world, his attachment to nature offers him identity. The term ‘landscape’ is the subject of ekphrasis or description and in Michon’s work it is a recall or a memory place rather than a geographic location. The landscape brings into existence the space where one can find his origin. In fact, his entire work turns out to be a journey, a return to the History and in the past through rural, apocalyptic, religious, serene landscapes that arise the misgivings of those living in the rhythm of the seasons. The rural area encompasses a community described by the writer as having a ‘rudimentary nature’, situated far from the urban world and living from farming and agriculture. Despite all this, they preserve their customs and the popular and religious values. The evolution of Michon’s characters takes place in the world and the description brings the painting to life. The elements of the world provide some surprising images where reality and fantasy meet. In Michon’s work we identify some themes and motifs that contribute to a specific elementarium for the novelistic space. The spatial configuration is based on elementary forms (earth, water, air, fire) which function in symbiosis to sustain life on earth. Returning to the central theme, description is not just about describing, it is also about the search for immemorial time and self-discovery. Using portraiture in his work, as a form of description, Pierre Michon wants to bring tiny, modest beings out of anonymity and give them life and visibility. It comes as a recognition on his part for the memory of people who have contributed, on the one hand, to its becoming.