L’intermédialité chez Christian Gailly: le méloforme comme exemple de rapport musico-littéraire

Abstract

This article proposes a study of the intermedial relation between music and literature in the work of Christian Gailly. According to the méloforme trope, proposed by Frédéric Sounac, a literary work can borrow the form of a musical composition or take its structure as a reference. My aim will be to identify these two types of relations in Gailly’s work. Through the technique of the fugue and the form of the concerto in classical music and through the genre of jazz, I will focus in this study on two aspects. The first one is how literary texts borrow the structure of a musical form to recreate the effect of listening. The second one is how literary texts are composed along the lines of a musical genre. Using five novels as examples, the article will explore the limits of the transposition of the musical procedures and the value of resorting to the musical form.