« Le supplément défectueux »

Abstract

In Michel de Certeau's writings, literature is both omnipresent and proteiform, so floating that it becomes confused with writing in one of the two "regions of language". Such a state of literature can be called a "defect". If literature is thus faulty, it is because it is specific to a period (since early modern times) when the being defected (according to Certeau, a voice which was previously audible, fell silent). Such a philosophy of history prevents literature from being anything more than a faulty supplement to this perfectly lost voice.