“Le cœur absolu” by Philippe Sollers, between Dante and Debord

Abstract

Through an analysis of Philippe Sollers’ novel Le Cœur Absolu (1987), whose composition appears emblematic of the author’s post-1983 novelistic work, the article illustrates how the encounter-rewriting of two authors, Dante and Debord, is at the foundation of the second Sollersian manner. Indeed, as early as 1965, Sollers had written the seminal essay Dante et la traversée de l’écriture, which has been reprinted several times as proof of the Florentine poet’s importance in his work. This second Sollersian style is characterized by what we have called the aesthetics of the surface, i.e. the process by which, thanks to autofictional novel writing, the empty surface of the society of the spectacle is traversed, overturned and subverted by the emergence of the full surface of the text. The opposition between the flatness of the spectacular image and the depth of the surface of the written page is therefore central to understanding Philippe Sollers’ post-1983 novels. Beyond the oft-repeated accusation by critics of a betrayal of his previous values after the stylistic turn taken by Femmes, we note the coherence of the two main phases of Sollers’ writing.