Les périphrases du silence chez Ramuz : le rythme de l’indicible

Abstract

According to Ramuz, high mountains represent a chaos of stones and ice, where an apparently everlasting silence might conceal the threat of a deafening cataclysm, putting the existence of human beings in danger indeed. In this paper we analyse Ramuz’s use of periphrasis to allude to the silence of summits, especially in two of his novels: La Grande Peur dans la montagne and Si le soleil ne revenait pas; his recurrent stylistics and rhetorical patterns translate the unutterable entities overhanging the human being. In this way, his novels reveal a very contemporary sensitivity towards nature: a beginning of an ecopoetic analysis of the “silence of High Alps” will emerge in my conclusion.