Les Faux-Monnayeurs comme transmutation de L’Art de la Fugue

Résumé

THE COUNTERFEITERS AS A TRANSMUTATION OF THE ART OF FUGUE

The Counterfeiters is a unique work, conceived by André Gide as an intersemiotic transposition of the fugue form into literary language. This transmutation of The Art of Fugue into a literary mode occurs primarily at the structural level—polyphonic, architectural, and mathematical. Accordingly, the novel can be analyzed using tools typically applied to musical compositions. Gide employs numerous contrapuntal procedures and imitative techniques, constructing a counterpoint both between the voices (narrative threads) and between thematic subjects (the real world and the world of ideas; true and false moral currency). The character-instruments represent subjects and their variations across different voices and registers. Although one cannot speak of a direct equivalent in the case of an intersemiotic transposition from music to literature, the literary variant of The Art of Fugue remains deeply rooted in its musical model and may be regarded as a successful intersemiotic equivalent.