This paper looks at Couperin as both painter and poet, revealing his satirical verve, his humour, the porous relationship between his work and the world of theatre, his taste for mystery, mystification, irony and literary strategy. Couperin cultivates an aesthetic of connivance and echoes the cultural and societal context of his time. His titles, with their suggestive power, are both Barricades mysterieuses and precious keys that open up the meanders of the 'imagination'. The portrait of Couperin and the interpretation of his music are enriched by this journey through his work.
Published in 1724 and 1725, Couperin's Apotheoses are two singular musical portraits that, in both form and intent, go beyond the numerous title pieces that punctuate his harpsichord music. Dedicated to two emblematic figures of the 17th century, Corelli and Lully, these works translate into sound all that these musicians represent in the aesthetics of the time. In a mythological landscape tinged with contemporary references, the two and the musical styles they embody cross paths, sizing each other up, then reconcile in a "Peace of Parnassus" that seals the union of tastes previously deemed irreconcilable. Beyond painting and poetry, this is the apotheosis of a manifesto that Couperin defended throughout his career.
The article analyzes three autobiographical works that reflect the difficult reconstruction after the Islamist attack on the weekly journal Charlie Hebdo in 2015: the narrative Le Lambeau (2018) by Philippe Lawn as well as the graphic novels La Legerete (2016) by Catherine Meurisse and Catharsis (2015) by Luz. More specifically, the article is interested in the survival of and by comic procedures, fathoming thus the role of the aesthetic experience when confronted to terror. It stresses the respective contributions of literary text and of drawing in gaining distance from traumatic experience.
This article explores Pasolini's contribution to film adaptation by examining the nature of his adaptations, a kind of excess that draws inspiration from both religious pictorial works and "classical" texts. In Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom, he transposes the excesses of the Marquis de Sade's work to Fascist Italy to speak of the excesses of capitalism. Pier Paolo Pasolini, assassinated in 1975, was also a martyr and heretic in his own way, in relation to the dogmas of Catholicism, Marxism and the institutions of cinema.
Deeply affected by the upheavals of their time, Camus and Gary explore the excesses of modern man, his quest for the absolute, and the tensions that arise between reason and imagination, measure and excess. Drawing on mythic figures such as Faust, these authors sought to engage in a dialogue between myth and rationality to critique the excesses of their era. While some myths are deliberately degraded to expose their inadequacies, Camus and Gary never abandon the idea of re-enchanting the world through myth, all while maintaining a critical lucidity regarding modernity. This article highlights their approach to reconciling existential aspirations with contemporary realities.
