Jacques Roubaud’s styles

Jacques Roubaud has constantly sought to unify the coherence of a proliferating body of work, conceiving it in the form of a "project" that has been reworked several times, the heart of which remains poetry, including in its mirror, the prose cycle "The Great Fire of London." This work has already been the subject of important works, including a certain number of comprehensive syntheses. We propose to continue its exploration by approaching it from a point of view that has not yet been systematically adopted, that of style or rather styles. It is clear that Roubaud gives precedence to form over style, just as some of his major books are based on different modes of rewriting. The question of the unity of an author's style does not seem to arise in his case: hence the "project," which ensures its succession. However, the work is not without manifesting a thought of style: the recourse to the "ten styles"
of the Japanese poet Kamo no Chomei, the concept of "harmless prose", the link between writing protocol and style, are some examples. Moreover, one notes in the poetic work a clear stylistic evolution, from the lexical shimmer of ϵ, to the return to Queneau, passing by the literalness of Quelque chose noir. The "change of form" is coupled with an
evolution of style: the influence of surrealism gives way to that of "negative modernity" and American poetry, via the practice of translation. This evolution manifests Roubaud's belonging to the contemporary poetic field. We will therefore ask ourselves if stylistic traits appear and persist, in this journey of continuous invention.