Writing the 'e-motio', writing the enjoyment of loss: 'Dernier Royaume' between repetitions and variations

Abstract

Focusing on Dernier Royaume (The Last Kingdom), this study aims to enquire how his author, Pascal Quignard, inspired also by the figurative arts but mostly by music (in particular, baroque music) can pierce and overturn the rational assumptions on space-time relations by introducing in his texts a kind of perpetual motion balancing between loss and reappropriation. We will see how this motion can liberate an emotion symbolised by tears and how it can host the aoristic wave of jadis time.