The Balcony, an opportunity, in Siloé (1941) by Paul Gadenne and Un Balcon en forêt (1958) by Julien Gracq

Abstract

While the window has been the subject of remarkable critical studies, the balcony, popularized by the use of concrete, has remained affiliated with the field of architecture. This article proposes to show the specificity of this space and its contribution to ecopoetic writing, even before the term appeared. The study of the function of this circumscribed space in the sanatorium novel Siloé by Paul Gadenne, and Un Balcon en forêt by Julien Gracq, allows us to highlight the experience of the immersion of the individual in the environment that surrounds him. Indeed, the contemplative experience on the balcony of the two characters, contemporary with a questioning of the status of knowledge, is less a frontal confrontation with a panorama than a deepening of subjectivity through the mediation of the physical body and the expanse offered to the gaze, the woman-landscape completing the communion with the world.