| dc.description.abstract | This thesis sets out to explore French writer Michel Houellebecq’s poetics of the novel. It is
advanced in the introduction that Houellebecq’s work could be read against the novelist’s
1997 suggestion that “if somebody today was able to craft a mode of expression that was at
once honest and positive, they would change the world”. A poem where Houellebecq
expresses a need for “unseen metaphors” (“métaphores inédites”) is also put forward as an
example of the author’s aspirations within this area.
In order to provide a background to Houellebecq’s quest for an honest literary discourse,
the thesis first presents the writer’s world view, exploring Houellebecqian ideas about
sexuality, metaphysics, aesthetics, religion and the arts – in particular in relation to Arthur
Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Auguste Comte and French poetry theorist Jean Cohen.
This account takes place in chapter 2 and the material here consists of Houellebecq’s whole
work, i.e. his poetry and his essays as well as his novels. One important point made in this
chapter is the difference, as stated by Houellebecq himself, between literary and religious
discourse.
The core of the thesis, however, is chapter 3 and 4, where Houellebecq’s first four novels
Extension du domaine de la lutte, Les Particules élémentaires, Plateforme and La Possibilité
d’une île serve as material for the analysis.
Chapter 3 attempts to capture Houellebecq’s poetics in relation to literary genre by
comparing his novels to the French 19th century realist novel, Menippean satire and Novalis’
unfinished novel Henry of Ofterdingen.
Finally, chapter 4 presents an analysis of what is defined as the poetic “dense”
structuration of Houellebecq’s novels. Each of the four novels is studied with particular focus
on the metaphorical interpretation of their titles as well as on the motifs of sun and light. In
this context, Riffaterre’s concept of the “poetic matrix” is loosely used to characterise
Houellebecq’s novels as romans poèmes (“novel-poems”). The chapter ends with an analysis
of some of the mythical elements found in Houellebecq’s novels, in particular Plato’s Myth of
the Androgyne and its relation to the Houellebecqian yearning for love and purpose in life.
Both chapter 3 and chapter 4 can be seen as an investigation into the manner in which
Houellebecq’s pursuit of “honesty” relies on traditional elements of Western literature such as
the three literary genres studied in chapter 3 and the literary imaginary of motifs and myths
put forward in chapter 4. | sv |
