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La grande étrangère. À propos de littérature
Michel Foucault entretient avec la littérature une relation complexe, critique, stratégique. Les documents inédits qui composent le présent volume en témoignent magnifiquement.. Sade, Cervantes, Artaud, Shakespeare....Le philosophe se livre à une description de sa bibliothèque littéraire.
Ce recueil regroupe pour la première fois plusieurs de ces interventions : émission de radio, enseignements et conférences. Prononcés à l’oral sur une période de moins de dix ans — entre 1963 et 1971 — chacun entretient avec l’écrit et la langue un rapport particulier.
Les deux premiers documents sont la transcription intégrale de deux émissions de radio diffusées à a radio française en janvier 1963, consacrées à la représentation de la folie dans le langage. Foucault y fait entendre de nombreux extraits : Shakespeare, Cervantès, Diderot, Sade, Artaud, Leiris.
Le deuxième ensemble est formé de deux conférences successives sur Langage et littérature. À la faveur d’une analyse de l’étrange « triangulation » qu’il décèle entre le langage, l’œuvre et la littérature, Foucault reprend l’ensemble des thèmes qui traversent ses écrits sur la littérature de ce début des années 1960.
Enfin, ce volume livre un article en deux parties prononcé en 1971 à l’université de Buffalo aux Etats-Unis, résultat d’une expérimentation à l’oral d’une étude du Marquis de Sade dont les manuscrits ont été conservés. Pour le philosophe La Nouvelle Justine est intégralement écrit sous le signe de la vérité.
À lire ces prises de parole consacrées à la littérature, le souci de Michel Foucault prend l’allure d’un véritable redoublement de son propre discours, c’est-à-dire tentative, menée à l’extrême, de dire à la fois l’ordre du monde et de ses représentations à un moment donné.
Ce recueil regroupe pour la première fois plusieurs de ces interventions : émission de radio, enseignements et conférences. Prononcés à l’oral sur une période de moins de dix ans — entre 1963 et 1971 — chacun entretient avec l’écrit et la langue un rapport particulier.
Les deux premiers documents sont la transcription intégrale de deux émissions de radio diffusées à a radio française en janvier 1963, consacrées à la représentation de la folie dans le langage. Foucault y fait entendre de nombreux extraits : Shakespeare, Cervantès, Diderot, Sade, Artaud, Leiris.
Le deuxième ensemble est formé de deux conférences successives sur Langage et littérature. À la faveur d’une analyse de l’étrange « triangulation » qu’il décèle entre le langage, l’œuvre et la littérature, Foucault reprend l’ensemble des thèmes qui traversent ses écrits sur la littérature de ce début des années 1960.
Enfin, ce volume livre un article en deux parties prononcé en 1971 à l’université de Buffalo aux Etats-Unis, résultat d’une expérimentation à l’oral d’une étude du Marquis de Sade dont les manuscrits ont été conservés. Pour le philosophe La Nouvelle Justine est intégralement écrit sous le signe de la vérité.
À lire ces prises de parole consacrées à la littérature, le souci de Michel Foucault prend l’allure d’un véritable redoublement de son propre discours, c’est-à-dire tentative, menée à l’extrême, de dire à la fois l’ordre du monde et de ses représentations à un moment donné.
224 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2015
18 people are currently reading
452 people want to read
About the author
Michel Foucault
764 books6,498 followersPaul-Michel Foucault was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationships between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. Though often cited as a structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels. His thought has influenced academics, especially those working in communication studies, anthropology, psychology, sociology, criminology, cultural studies, literary theory, feminism, Marxism and critical theory.
Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, where he developed an interest in philosophy and came under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser, and at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where he earned degrees in philosophy and psychology. After several years as a cultural diplomat abroad, he returned to France and published his first major book, The History of Madness (1961). After obtaining work between 1960 and 1966 at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, he produced The Birth of the Clinic (1963) and The Order of Things (1966), publications that displayed his increasing involvement with structuralism, from which he later distanced himself. These first three histories exemplified a historiographical technique Foucault was developing called "archaeology".
From 1966 to 1968, Foucault lectured at the University of Tunis before returning to France, where he became head of the philosophy department at the new experimental university of Paris VIII. Foucault subsequently published The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). In 1970, Foucault was admitted to the Collège de France, a membership he retained until his death. He also became active in several left-wing groups involved in campaigns against racism and human rights abuses and for penal reform. Foucault later published Discipline and Punish (1975) and The History of Sexuality (1976), in which he developed archaeological and genealogical methods that emphasized the role that power plays in society.
Foucault died in Paris from complications of HIV/AIDS; he became the first public figure in France to die from complications of the disease. His partner Daniel Defert founded the AIDES charity in his memory.
Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, where he developed an interest in philosophy and came under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser, and at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where he earned degrees in philosophy and psychology. After several years as a cultural diplomat abroad, he returned to France and published his first major book, The History of Madness (1961). After obtaining work between 1960 and 1966 at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, he produced The Birth of the Clinic (1963) and The Order of Things (1966), publications that displayed his increasing involvement with structuralism, from which he later distanced himself. These first three histories exemplified a historiographical technique Foucault was developing called "archaeology".
From 1966 to 1968, Foucault lectured at the University of Tunis before returning to France, where he became head of the philosophy department at the new experimental university of Paris VIII. Foucault subsequently published The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). In 1970, Foucault was admitted to the Collège de France, a membership he retained until his death. He also became active in several left-wing groups involved in campaigns against racism and human rights abuses and for penal reform. Foucault later published Discipline and Punish (1975) and The History of Sexuality (1976), in which he developed archaeological and genealogical methods that emphasized the role that power plays in society.
Foucault died in Paris from complications of HIV/AIDS; he became the first public figure in France to die from complications of the disease. His partner Daniel Defert founded the AIDES charity in his memory.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 14, 2016
....Cezanne'ın benzersiz bakışını gezdirdiği Saint-Victorie Dağı'nın onun eseri olduğunu söyleyecek değildir kimse, ama Semadirek Kanatlı Zaferi ancak tanrıların elinden çıkmış olarak . İle-de-France ve Beauce bölgelerinin ücra köşelerinde teolojik bir mavi. Birden gökyüzü incecik bir maviye , ortaçağ minyatürlerinin mavisine, Berry Dükü minyatürlerinin mavisine, teolojik bir maviye büründü. El neredeydi? İsterseniz şöyle söyleyeyim: Yaratıcının eli neredeydi?
April 2, 2024
Extraordinari. Recull de quatre conferències de Foucault en què problematitza la pregunta què és la literatura i l'ubica en la pròpia tradició literària; fent-ne una genealogia, ens mostra la interrelació existent entre el llenguatge, l'obra i la literatura. Profund, esclaridor i ple de metàfores bellíssimes, una té la sensació d'emergir de les conferències amb un coneixement major d'això que és l'escriptura i publicació, de la història i tradició literàries. A part d'això, la segona part tracta sobre l'escriptura de Sade; tot i no tenir un interès particular en la seva obra, la lectura foucaltiana d'aquesta ha resultat tremendament interessant i novedosa. Molt recomanable!
August 15, 2025
La conferenza su Sade eccezionale
July 19, 2020
As Interesting as any Foucault work. But so many bullet points, so many lists, it gets really, really annoying.
Ironically I'm switching to Wittgenstein now.
Ironically I'm switching to Wittgenstein now.
December 28, 2018
Michel Foucault ile ilk tanışmam. Tabii ziyadesiyle ağır ve sert bir tanışma oldu ama diğer yandan da çok mutlu oldum bu gecikmiş vuslat için. Michel Foucault kolay okumaya müsaade etmeyen, detaycı dili ve yoğun felsefik kavramları içeren anlatımı nedeniyle her okura hitap etmeyen bir yazar. Daha çok Foucault okudukça daha çok alışacağıma eminim keza kendisi hakkında çok sayıda kitap yazılmış, eş zamanlı bunları da okumaya karar verdim.
Kitapta en çarpıcı bölüm M. De Sade ile ilgili bölümlerdi. Çoğu goodreads üyesinin De Sade kitaplarını okuduğunu işaretlemeye çekindiğini düşündüğüm bir minvalde, Michel Foucault De Sade ile alakalı muhteşem tespitlerde bulunuyor. Geçtiğimiz aylarda bir De Sade eseri okurken çok büyük bir şaşkınlık yaşamıştım, zira hemen her yerde pornografik bir yazar gibi gösterilen De Sade'ın eserlerinin çok çok daha fazlası olduğunu olduğunu fark etmiştim. İşte Foucault göz ardı edilen bu hususu detaylıca ele alıp çözümlüyor ve çok çarpıcı satırlara imza atıyor.
Özetle Foucault'a devam...
Kitapta en çarpıcı bölüm M. De Sade ile ilgili bölümlerdi. Çoğu goodreads üyesinin De Sade kitaplarını okuduğunu işaretlemeye çekindiğini düşündüğüm bir minvalde, Michel Foucault De Sade ile alakalı muhteşem tespitlerde bulunuyor. Geçtiğimiz aylarda bir De Sade eseri okurken çok büyük bir şaşkınlık yaşamıştım, zira hemen her yerde pornografik bir yazar gibi gösterilen De Sade'ın eserlerinin çok çok daha fazlası olduğunu olduğunu fark etmiştim. İşte Foucault göz ardı edilen bu hususu detaylıca ele alıp çözümlüyor ve çok çarpıcı satırlara imza atıyor.
Özetle Foucault'a devam...
June 30, 2022
Brilliant Saint Foucault. Three sets of presentations by Foucault on literature and madness, literature and language and Sade and writing. The first two interrogates the difference created in ‘literature’ adtwr the 18th century and the last focuses at one of the extreme sources of how truth works at imagination in a way to subvert writing to make literature as a destructive force. Such a force to deny history as it is defined with beginnings and endings by replacing it with infinity gained by repetition. Foucault underscores his keen and persistent argument about the difference of Western distinction in these earlier fight texts (his shadow fighting—his constant challenging of his own writing, his struggle to construct an understanding—is most evident in these pieces), and his pretense for not knowing other traditions of writing is not convincing. At least he doesn’t incorporate Ancient Greek and Roman thought as the basis of his West.
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January 25, 2022Curse the person who made this hyperbolic title.
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July 13, 2023Me lo he leído principalmente por los capítulos dedicados a Artaud y a Sade, pero todos son bien interesantes, como la conferencia en la que aborda qué es la literatura (o qué está en proceso de ser)
May 3, 2025
Effrayant et brutal son analyse de Sade. D'un côté formel, quel sublime analyse du discours.
October 21, 2025
For people who like to think about literature more than read it.
December 13, 2018
La conférence retranscrite dans laquelle Foucault expose ses idées sur la littérature et sur le Marquis de Sade.
July 18, 2022
El apartado de Sade es un manjar, se lee solo.
April 20, 2021
These texts provide a rare glimpse into Foucault's thought on subjects which he would later go to great pains to avoid. All the more reason then that it is frustrating that some texts associated with those in this collection have been excluded.
Although the first selection, two transcripts of a radio program, are the least interesting, they were originally a part of a five part series of which the first, third, and fourth have been left out because the editors judged them not relevant to the scope of this volume. I would like to disagree, but they haven't provided the texts for me to form a judgement on their relevance! In any case, the two texts they do include refer to the others and so cannot be fully appreciated outside of this greater context.
The more dissapointing exclusion comes from the last section. The preface tk "Lectures on Sade" explains that these two lectures were accompanied by lectures on Flaubert's Bouvard and Pécuchet without any rationale for why they might have been left out of this volume. The endnotes even provide information on the Sade lecture manuscripts, but neglect the status of these Flaubert lectures! Perhaps they do not exist in manuscript form and are lost to time, but I'll never know since the editors make no such comment. Perhaps Flaubert isn't believed to be as tantalizing as Sade for an English speaking audience, but Bouvard and Pécuchet was just as much a literary topos for the 68ers as Sade was.
Despite these exclusions, the present lectures are unique among the texts of Foucault I have yet read. He speaks of structuralism and psychoanalysis in the most positive terms I have seen and yet remains characteristically critical of both. In this way, these texts cannot be read as a sign of a secret Foucault who would turn out to be a crypto-structuralist or a crypto-lacanian so many wanted to find in his work. The Literature and Language section prefigures his Archaeology of Knowledge in seeking to found a formal analysis of discourse not dependant on linguistic models and the Lectures on Sade explicitly reject a Freudian or Marcusian reading. It will be curious to see how his reading of Sade contrasts with that of Klossowski, Blanchot, Lacan, and Deleuze who all form a background millieu in some way for this text.
I will definitely return to this volume which has provided greater interest in Foucault's early thought in the future.
Although the first selection, two transcripts of a radio program, are the least interesting, they were originally a part of a five part series of which the first, third, and fourth have been left out because the editors judged them not relevant to the scope of this volume. I would like to disagree, but they haven't provided the texts for me to form a judgement on their relevance! In any case, the two texts they do include refer to the others and so cannot be fully appreciated outside of this greater context.
The more dissapointing exclusion comes from the last section. The preface tk "Lectures on Sade" explains that these two lectures were accompanied by lectures on Flaubert's Bouvard and Pécuchet without any rationale for why they might have been left out of this volume. The endnotes even provide information on the Sade lecture manuscripts, but neglect the status of these Flaubert lectures! Perhaps they do not exist in manuscript form and are lost to time, but I'll never know since the editors make no such comment. Perhaps Flaubert isn't believed to be as tantalizing as Sade for an English speaking audience, but Bouvard and Pécuchet was just as much a literary topos for the 68ers as Sade was.
Despite these exclusions, the present lectures are unique among the texts of Foucault I have yet read. He speaks of structuralism and psychoanalysis in the most positive terms I have seen and yet remains characteristically critical of both. In this way, these texts cannot be read as a sign of a secret Foucault who would turn out to be a crypto-structuralist or a crypto-lacanian so many wanted to find in his work. The Literature and Language section prefigures his Archaeology of Knowledge in seeking to found a formal analysis of discourse not dependant on linguistic models and the Lectures on Sade explicitly reject a Freudian or Marcusian reading. It will be curious to see how his reading of Sade contrasts with that of Klossowski, Blanchot, Lacan, and Deleuze who all form a background millieu in some way for this text.
I will definitely return to this volume which has provided greater interest in Foucault's early thought in the future.
August 19, 2016
Definitivamente interesante. En algunas partes me fue difícil de leer, hace muchas referencias que no alcanzo a comprender del todo. Particularmente disfruté la sección sobre Sade; un muy buen análisis.
May 26, 2020
What a great collection! These essays and lectures contain a wealth of information on how Foucault explicitly dealt with and thought about literature, and the introduction is very elucidating for that matter.
March 9, 2021
Still don't get Foucault; too deep for me. Starting to get there, though. Lots of interesting ideas in this one.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews