La Réécriture

Abstract

'Recrire' (to write again) is, according to the dictionary of Littre, to write or, if one prefers, to write again what was already written. The rewriting can be also heard as the return of a writer on his own writing, the words of oneself like those of another, one can then see it like a self-rewriting. Defined by Dupriez like "successive lessons of the same text, which can be characterized by some variable, but also by sometimes considerable differences in the contents, the form, even the intention and dimensions", the rewriting, in a modern context, seems the fundamental principle of any writing if one refere to the concepts of intertextuality and hypertextuality updated by contemporary literary criticism. Without trying to make a thorough definition of the concept, we propose, in this work, to outline a short history of the rewriting. This history of the rewriting carried out starting from some French writers will show that, even during a time when the writers assert the originality vigorously and refuse the imitation, like the romantic time, the rewriting is however at the origin of works of several writers and the mechanisms of literary creation remain mechanisms of rewriting the mechanisms of literary creation remain mechanisms of rewriting.