title: ON LOVE AND MELANCHOLIA IN MARGUERITE DURAS'S AUTOFICTION.
abstract: In the Durassian melancholic atmosphere, past and present, fantasy and reality come together as one. This paper addresses the themes of love and destruction in Marguerite Duras's life that pervade her oeuvre, allowing us to discern a melancholic structure within her autofiction. Writing down her melancholia--the impossible mourning of a loved object--Duras captures nothingness and loss--in order not to die of love. In a constant exchange with her readers, she searches for herself and delivers herself to her readers. This renewable creative process of writing enables her to engage in an ongoing experience of identity reconstruction, in a way similar to the patient in psychoanalysis re-creating his/her life's fiction.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Psychologist and Assistant Lecturer on the Faculty for Psychoanalytic Studies, Paris Diderot University, Sorbonne Paris Cité, in Paris, France.
authors.forename: Vassiliki N
authors.initials: VN
authors.lastname: Simoglou
mesh_terms: D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D005201:Fantasy; D006117:Grief; D006801:Humans; D008149:Love; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation
keywords: Love; Marguerite Duras; autofiction; desire; destruction; lack; loss; melancholia