Peut-on fuir les désastres du passé ? Thésée, sa vie nouvelle de Camille de Toledo

• Published in: Cahiers de narratologie Vol. 44; no. 44
• Main Author: Violi, Patrizia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; French
• Published: Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Récits Cultures Et Sociétés 10.11.2023
• ISSN: 0993-8516; 1765-307X
• DOI: 10.4000/narratologie.14734

When we think of disaster narratives, we often refer to great collective events, natural catastrophes or anthropic traumas, such as wars and genocides. Sometimes, however, disasters are hidden in individual lives, in the temporal stratifications of the past, in the experience of the generations that preceded us of which we are not aware. We speak in these cases of post-memory, a topic much discussed today both in Memory Studies and in psychoanalytic reflection, which has elaborated the concept of the transpsychic. In this contribution I will examine a literary text - Thésée, sa vie nouvelle by Camille de Toledo - exemplary of this complex memorial passage, its psychic implications, and the difficult elaboration that such painful memories always require.