APPROCHE MÉTATEXTUELLE DU DISCOURS DRAMATIQUE IONESCIEN - LE DIALOGUE AVEC LA TRADITION LITTÉRAIRE

Literary works are a constant topic of commentary. Literary texts carry specific metalinguistic and metapragmatic elements and require metalinguistic and metapragmatic codes and competences in order to prevent misunderstanding. Our paper aims to highlight the reasons for attaching the metatextual label to Eugène Ionesco’s dramatic work. Ionesco’s plays can be viewed as some sort of comment on previous dramatic texts defying the traditional theatrical conventions. Remarks on literature and art appear all through his life: in critical texts, as well as in his characters’ statements. Metatextual comment is deeply embedded in the production of dramatic text itself and is placed at the natural confluence of the playwright and the reader, that is, of the one who writes the plays and the one who watches his writing.