Fantaisies et (dé)raisons de l’oubli chez Jean Giraudoux

Among the traumas associated with the First World War, Giraudoux was particularly sensitive to amnesia, to the point of making it the main subject of a novel: Siegfried et le Limousin. Adapted to the scene in 1928, this novel contributed to author’s fame and inaugurated his collaboration with Louis Jouvet. In fact, the principle of forgetfulness persists throughout the whole Giraudoux’s work: comical, dramatic or poetic, and it is also the main pretext for a meditation on memory.