De la feintise à la fiction. Le mouvement dialogal de la préface

Abstract

The preface of the eighteenth-century French novel is usually considered to be a means of authentication of the novel, that is to say, it aims at establishing the veracity of the text, using different kinds of procedures that certify either its origin (e.g. in resorting to the procedure of the found manuscript), or the truthfulness of the related events (e.g. by resorting to witnesses or historical figures). These authentication-procedures are so widely diffused and repeated, however, that they become ‹common topics’ of the prefatory discourse. This article is based on the theoretical assumption, as formulated by Jean Bessière, that literature stems from the juncture of common ideas on the one hand, and creativity on the other. The common topics ensure the acknowledgement of literature, and thereby its very existence. Starting from this theoretical statement, our scope is to show that the topics in the prefatory discourse of the novel in the eighteenth century do not want to “make us believe” in the truth of the novel, but rather to “make us recognize” the novel as fiction. If at first sight the preface appears as a “fake”, the topicality of its discourse obliterates this idea and establishes the recognition of fiction. Thus eighteenth-century fiction is based on a paradox: it exists on the basis of a discourse that, when read literally, intends to deny its fictional nature. We aim at foregrounding this assumption through the discussion of three main aspects of the prefatory discourse: the performativity of the preambulary “I”, the procedure of the found manuscript, and the topic of the authenticating witness. In doing so, we adopt a pragmatic standpoint, situated along the lines of the works of Jean-Marie Schaeffer.