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- Title
« On ne m'atteint pas »: Nadja ou l'insaisissable photographie.
- Authors
Canovas, Frédéric
- Abstract
André Breton's Nadja is a text emblematic of modern literature in that, among other reasons, the narrative is accompanied by 48 black and white photographs punctuating the meeting between the narrator and a young woman. Many critics have tried to decipher the meaning of these photographs and fit them into different reading schemes so as to reveal certain elements that are left unsaid in the text. Our study uses three studies published in the last thirty years regarding the photography in Nadja to show how any attempt to interpret the photographs is bound to fail--or simply generate confusion and ambiguity--and raises more question than it answers. In aiming for a more disturbing narrative, Breton clouded the issue and created a system of meaning difficult to grasp for both himself and his readers. Those attempting to fit the photographs in Nadja into a more comprehensive system run the risk of projecting their own personal tendencies on the textual and visual elements in the book, resulting in a reading characterized more by its subjective aspects than its scientific rigour.
- Publication
Tangence, 2020, Issue 124, p113
- ISSN
1189-4563
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.7202/1081690ar