A name and its opposite: On the novel "Les larmes" by Pascal Quignard

Abstract

In his novel Les Larmes (2016), Quignard delves into the origins of his art by invoking the Oaths of Strasbourg, as recorded in Nithard’s 9th-century chronicle, and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia, considered the birth certificates of the French language and literature, respectively. Within a narrative that blends history and fiction, where names mirror the transition from Latin to Old French and the latter’s intersections with Old German, the onomastic anagram formed by Nithard’s own name and Hartnid, the name of his brother, whom he barely mentions, appears not only to encapsulate recurring themes in the novel and unveil various aspects of Quignard’s poetics but also to encode the author’s signature within the text through his writing itself.