A l‘épreuve du mal. Abjection et célébration chez Jean Genet

Abstract

This essay tackles the literary strategies that Genet uses to bind abjection and laudation together. Not only does Genet represent pariahs, male prostitutes and betrayers, but he also praises them, he places evil in the center of an encomiastic work. One of the strategies observed in this essay, for instance, consists in reversing the attributive logic between the criminal whom Genet celebrates and the qualities of the man that he praises: abjection doesn‘t demean the character, because the character‘s qualities don‘t seem to determine him, instead, it is the character who determines the moral value of his qualities. Hence, a cowardly handsome man is not any less desirable due to his cowardice: on the contrary, his cowardice becomes beautiful because it belongs to a beautiful man.