Le plaisir dans la littérature et la musique françaises au XXe siècle

The paradoxical nature of Pleasure is part of immanence and contingency (the sensations and consciousness of human beings) on the one hand, and of transcendence on the other, whether it be erotic or intellectual, aesthetic, memorial, mystic or hallucinatory. Pleasure is therefore boundless, transcending both time and space, and undetermined, as it also transcends meaning. But how can one solve the paradox of pleasure — which transcends space, time, and meaning simultaneously — and the arts which are simultaneously grounded in space, time and meaning? In other words, how is Pleasure expressed in literature and music in the 20th century? Cross-analysis of the two art forms shows that the ontological gap that is inherent in pleasure can be the occasion for both expressive questioning and disruption in the work concerned, and that such questioning and disruption are the very means by which creators try to take up the challenge.