Phenomenology from Robbe-Grillet to Julio Cortázar: An Essay on the Poetics of Presence

Abstract

This article provides a comparative analysis of the works of Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922-2008) and Julio Cortázar (1914-1984) setting phenomenology as a common ground and comparative basis. The authors' works are regarded in relation to the philosophies of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). An extensive analysis of Husserl’s phenomenological method of description is provided in order to set the philosopher’s text in relation to Robbe-Grillet’s techniques of the nouveau roman. The development from Husserlian phenomenology to Heideggerian existential phenomenology is fully taken account of to demonstrate that while Robbe-Grillet’s literary phenomenology follows closely the tenets of Husserlian epistemology, Cortázar’s text adopts a Heideggerian approach to his rendering of truth in terms of existential content.