Michel de Certeau et l’écriture poétique de l’histoire

Abstract

Michel de Certeau and the poetic writing of history. According to Michel de Certeau, there is an inescapable paradox in the historiographic operation. On the one hand, it is characterized by movements and reclassifications of documents of which the historians are concerned. On the other hand, the technique of writing is only a production of difference, since historians always ask the questions and make the analysis in the present. Thus, the historiographical writing is a fiction of reality, because the historical object is an absent body. These poetic forms give substance to the otherness of the past so that it can become, in a certain way, visible and memorable.