Le blanc de la complainte

Using an exemplary poem of Jules Laforgue (1860-87), the author studies the mechanisms of "l'écriture poétique." She situates "Les linges, le Cygne" in its context (L'Imitation de Notre-Dame la Lune, 1885) and in its intertext (Les Complaintes, 1885; Lohengrin, 1887). Then she proceeds to a systematic textual analysis: the title, the quatrain-refrain, the central part-indicating the variations, inaccuracies, and improprieties, showing the literal chains that connect the text and the phantasms that traverse the written body. Like Mallarmé, Laforgue affirms himself to be the poet of nothing. This poem associates the white of desire with the white of writing. (In French) (JB)