Historical writing and artist’s growth narrative in Terrasse à Rome from the perspective of semiotic self

1 Introduction

Pascal Quignard (1948-) is regarded as one of the most influential and innovative contemporary French novelists. Since the publication of his debut work in 1969, he has written prolifically, with over 90 works to date. Quignard’s works merge “historical imagination, literary fiction, aesthetic appreciation of art, and philosophical inquiry” (Wei 2015, p. 99), earning him numerous literary awards. Among these, Vie secrète (Secret Life) is hailed as an immortal masterpiece, winning the Prix France Culture; Les ombres errantes (The Roving Shadows) won the Prix Goncourt. In 2000, Quignard published Terrasse à Rome (Terrace in Rome). The novel tells the story of the engraver Meaume, who, after being disfigured by an act of love (a jealous act of his lover’s fiancé), undergoes a transformation in his engraving art and embarks on a journey of self-discovery. Terrasse à Rome is brimming with the spark of artistic creation and the collision of artistic ideas. Upon its publication, it sold over 100,000 copies in France, was translated into 15 languages, and won the Prix Prince-Pierre-de-Monaco, the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie Française, and was selected as one of the year’s best books by The Economist. Le Figaro described it as follows: “Terrasse à Rome blends ideas, life, fictional imagination, wisdom, and the traces of dreams, endowing the work with a unique vitality.”

Throughout his career, Quignard has shown a particular fondness for historical themes, with a special preference for the 17th century. He has repeatedly expressed his desire to “être lu en 1640” (“be read in 1640”) (Quignard 1981, p. 282) and has continually written about this distant era, which serves as the emotional anchor and spiritual landscape of his works. The 17th century has thus become an important pathway through which he explores art and existence. Quignard sets the story of Terrasse à Rome in this historical period and creates the fictional artist Meaume within a historically grounded framework. In a certain sense, Terrasse à Rome can be regarded as a Bildungsroman. Although Quignard does not provide a detailed account of Meaume’s growth process and does not strictly follow a chronological sequence, he freely jumps across time and space to sketch Meaume’s artistic transformation from apprentice to master of the “manière noire” (mezzotint), as well as his exploration and reflection on art and the meaning of self.

Existing scholarship has predominantly focused on Quignard’s stylistic characteristics (Ge 2013; Wei 2015) or his historical narrative strategies (Liu and Wang 2020; Wang 2017), with few studies adopting a semiotic-self perspective to explore the interplay between the self, historical writing, and artistic growth in his novels. Drawing on semiotic-self theory, this paper analyses the historical writing and artist’s growth narrative in Terrasse à Rome, examining how the temporal and spatial dimensions of history facilitate Meaume’s construction of a semiotic self. Through this lens, the study elucidates Quignard’s emphasis on the existential significance of marginalized individuals’ growth as mediated through historical writing.

2 Terrasse à Rome and construction of the semiotic self

Throughout history, discussions about the self have been perennial. From the perspective of semioticians, the most effective way to conceptualize the self is to regard it as a sign. Charles Sanders Peirce (1934) posited that the world is pervasively semiotic, arguing that semiosis (the sign-process) involves a triadic relationship among the sign (representamen), the object, and the interpretant. Peirce’s framework reconceptualizes the semiotic self, transforming it from a static entity into a dynamic process constituted through symbolic interpretation and interaction. George Herbert Mead further developed the theory of the semiotic self from a social psychological perspective. In Mind, Self and Society (1934), he theorized that the self emerges through symbolically mediated social interactions. Individuals generate meaning through gestures and attitudes and then internalize these symbols through social exchange, thereby constructing the self. Mead analyzes the self as a dialectic between the “I” (the impulsive, present-oriented actor) and the “me” (the socially conditioned past), positing that selfhood arises from their internal dialogue.

Norbert Wiley defines the self as the universal essence of humanity, encompassing its “rational, symbolic, abstract, semiotic, and linguistic” dimensions (Wiley 1994, p. 1), which he terms the “semiotic self” (ibid.). Synthesizing Peirce’s “I-You” dialogic model and Mead’s “I-Me” theory, Wiley conceptualizes the semiotic self as a triadic structure comprising: I-present-sign (the reflexive present self), me-past-object (the past self as remembered), and you-future-interpretant (the projected future self). He posits that “humans are a triad of triads” (ibid., p. 215), emphasizing the self’s sui generis nature. The semiotic self is temporally embedded, allowing individuals to simultaneously perceive past and future within the present. Crucially, the self functions dually – as both the signified object and the interpretant – within semiotic interactions. This dynamism renders the self a continuously evolving system of meaning, wherein the “I-present” interprets the “me-past” for the “you-future.” As Wiley states: “…the I and the you interpret the me to give direction to the you. Semiotically, the I-present functions as a sign, the me-past as the object, and the you-future as the interpretant” (ibid., p. 14). This internal dialogue underpins identity formation. Reflecting on past experiences engages the object-self (me-past); anticipating future consequences invokes the interpretant-self (you-future). Thus, the self emerges horizontally through temporal-semiotic synthesis: the past self (object) is mediated by the present self (sign) to produce the future self (interpretant), which in turn becomes a new object in subsequent reflections. This recursive process generates a continuous symbolic chain wherein the tensions and interactions among the triad drive personal growth across spatiotemporal contexts. The self as a symbol often “examines past experiences and expects certain results in the future” (Zhao 2010, p. 16). Wiley’s framework illuminates how individuals navigate historical and narrative contexts through symbolic self-interpretation, achieving a transformative leap from passive object to active interpretation.

In Terrasse à Rome, Quignard invents the “eau-fortier préalablement défiguré par l’eau-forte: Meaume” (“etching artist previously disfigured by etching: Meaume”) (Quignard 2005, p. 287) to rediscover “quelque chose d’intense” (“something intense”) (ibid.) that “la plus grande part, la meilleure part des graveurs du XVII ^e siècle étaient passés à côté” (“most of the best engravers of the 17th century had missed”) (ibid.). In Quignard’s view, the essence of this “intense” thing lies in the pursuit of self-meaning. Meaume’s key life events form a clear symbol chain: born in Paris in 1617 (the starting point of the “me past”), disfigured in Bruges in 1639 due to love and forced into European exile (the rupture of the “I present”), and innovating the “manière noire” in Rome in 1643 (the emergence of the “you future”). Throughout his transformation from apprentice to true artist, Meaume consistently used symbols as a medium for self-dialogue: his disfigured face became the object of the “me past,” the chisel and the “eau-forte” became the instrumental symbols of the “I present,” and the concept of the “peinture de perdition” (“painting of perdition”) (Quignard 2000, p. 25) pointed to the interpretant of the “you future.” This process of self-interpretation exemplifies the semiotic self’s reconstruction within a historical context.

3 The temporal dimension of historical writing: displacement of the semiotic self

Michael Bakhtin argues that Bildungsroman “shapes the image of characters in the process of becoming. The protagonist’s image here is not a static unity but a dynamic one” (1998, p. 230, originally in Chinese). He emphasizes how temporal progression transforms identity: “Time enters into the character’s inner world, profoundly altering the meaning of all aspects of their destiny and life” (Ibid.). Through its symbolic treatment of historical temporality, Terrasse à Rome demonstrates how Meaume’s semiotic self undergoes displacement within the tension between past, present, and future.

In the opening of Terrasse à Rome, Quignard writes: “Meaume leur dit : ‘Je suis né l’année 1617 à Paris…Après Bruges, j’ai vécu seul. À Bruges, j’aimais une femme et mon visage fut entièrement brûlé’.” (Quignard 2000, p. 9) (“Meaume tells [or told] them: ‘I was born in Paris in 1617… After Bruges, I lived alone. In Bruges, I loved a woman and my face was completely burned’.”) This passage, where Meaume recounts his life story, places two pivotal events (“suis né” and “fut brûlé”) on the same temporal plane. Through verb tense interplay – “dit” can express either present or simple past tense (Wei 2022, p. 89), while “aimais” (imperfect) and “fut brûlé” (simple past) contrast with “suis né” (present tense denoting past action) – the text constructs the “me past” as interpreted by the “I present.”

The year 1617 functions not merely as a historical marker but as a symbolic origin point for artistic selfhood. The early 17th century represented Flemish art’s golden age in Europe, furnishing Meaume’s foundational “me” reference: his apprenticeships (“apprenti chez Follin à Paris. Chez Rhuys le Réformé dans la cité de Toulouse. Chez Heemkers à Bruges”) (“apprentice at the Follin household in Paris. At the home of Rhuys the Reformer in the city of Toulouse. At the home of Heemkers in Bruges”) (Quignard 2000, p. 9). These experiences constituted an internalization of printmaking’s traditional symbolic codes.

Meaume’s development, the process of constructing his semiotic self, is inextricably bound to his evolving identities and anchored in pivotal historical and personal events. In Terrasse à Rome, Quignard twice references “1639” (ibid., p. 9, 13), a year of dual significance: when “Jacob Veet Jakobsz, orfèvre dans la cité de Bruges, fut nommé juge électif pour l’année” (“Jacob Veet Jakobsz, goldsmith of Bruges, was appointed elected judge for the year”) (ibid., p. 11), and when Meaume’s love for the judge’s daughter Nanni arguably seeded both his future artistic transcendence and personal tragedy. This “extase” (“ecstasy”) (ibid., p. 29) proved ephemeral – within the same year, Nanni’s fiancé disfigured Meaume’s face with eau-forte, forcing his solitary exile from Bruges. This violent rupture marks the critical juncture in both the disintegration and the subsequent reconstruction of Meaume’s semiotic self.

After his face was irrevocably altered and “la plus grande part de la substance de [s]a vie” (“the most substantial part of [his] life” (ibid., p. 114) was permanently lost – after the complete destruction of the “me past” (the apprentice with an intact face) as object – Meaume again “dit” (speaks/spoke): “J’aillais porter mon pauvre chant ailleurs. Comme il y a une musique de perditions, il y a une peinture de perdition.” (“I would carry my poor song elsewhere. Just as there exists a music of perdition, so too must there be a painting of perdition.”) (ibid., p. 25). This narrative mirrors the novel’s opening, employing the past tense “aillais porter” to denote future-oriented action. The present act of “dit” thus functions as Meaume’s valediction to his former self (object). While withholding his future identity, Meaume manifests a determined impulse to transmute catastrophe into artistic genesis, fulfilling his self-expectation through completion of the “peinture de perdition” (interpretant). This transformation culminates in his decision to “voler” (“take flight”) (ibid., p. 25).

Exiled across Europe, Meaume ultimately reached Rome in 1643, where he apprenticed under Baroque painter Claude Gellée, mastering the technique of landscape engraving. In mid-17th century Rome, landscape art occupied a peripheral position – typically serving as background complement to dominant religious and mythological subjects – a marginalization that mirrored Meaume’s own outsider status. His artistic maturation culminated in becoming a “graveur voué au noir et blanc” (“engraver devoted to black and white”) (ibid., p. 38), a virtuoso of the manière noire. This transformation occurred precisely when he transcended both conventional artistic norms and his former self: “Avec mon eau acide, j’ajoute un peu à ce qui brûle.” (“With my nitric acid, I intensify burning”) (ibid., p. 39). Here, Meaume weaponizes the very eau-forte that once scarred him, now harnessing its corrosive power to innovate the engraving process.

Through artistic innovation, Meaume finalized the future-oriented construction of his semiotic self. The manière noire intaglio process produces forms that appear to emerge from shadow like infants from the birth canal – a technical achievement that simultaneously facilitated psychological return. By mastering this engraving method, Meaume symbolically reentered the primal creative space lost at birth, shedding imposed social identities to forge an autonomous artistic existence. His practice thus transmutes the trauma of disfigurement into a semiotics of rebirth: the “me past” (object)’s suffering becomes, through the “I present” (sign)’s creative act, the “you future” (interpretant)’s transcendent artistic vision.

In the concluding passages of Terrasse à Rome, Quignard reiterates Meaume’s 1617 Parisian spring birth and baptismal record. This recurrence transcends mere repetition or circularity, instead tracing the semiotic self’s spiral ascent through historical temporality – each present retrospective now imbued with futural significance. The novel’s denouement thus articulates Quignard’s conviction of writing’s infinite potential: its capacity to inhabit an eternal cycle of “birth” (past), “death” (present), and “rebirth” (future), mirroring the ceaseless dynamism of symbolic self-construction.

4 The spatial dimension of historical writing: growth, transcendence, and meaning exploration

Joseph Frank argues that “twentieth-century writers demonstrated a rejection of temporal sequence in favor of spatial organization” (1991, p. II, original in Chinese), proposing his seminal theory of the spatial form of the novel. In Terrasse à Rome, Quignard comprehensively renders Meaume’s development through the strategic deployment of fragmented scenes that privilege spatial construction over linear narration. The novel’s spatial architecture operates through three interdependent mechanisms: (1) geographical space (physical locations), (2) artistic space (creative domains), and (3) the liminal “ailleurs” (“elsewhere”) (Quignard 2000, pp. 25, 110) that permeates both. Quignard employs symbolic spatial markers – particularly the “angle” (“corner”), imbued with Meaume’s emotional history (functioning as private semiotic bridges between present and past selves) and “nature” (charting the artist’s trajectory toward future selfhood) – to construct a palimpsestic spatial matrix. This multidimensional structure becomes Quignard’s discursive arena for mediating on historical consciousness, artistic creation, and existential becoming.

5 Conclusions

Historical writing forms the core content of Quiganrd’s literary creation. In his historically grounded narratives, he chronicles artists’ developmental trajectories, demonstrating how their semiotic selves evolve along the “present-past-future” temporal continuum. Through multidimensional symbolic interactions, these works construct a tripartite network encompassing emotional memory, artistic innovation, and existential meaning-seeking. Simultaneously, drawing upon certain concepts of New Historicism, Quignard advocates for what he terms “des âmes en peine, des œuvres oubliés” (“tormented souls, forgotten works” (Lapeyre-Desmaison 2006, p. 122), attempting through contemporary historical fiction to resurrect overlooked individuals and ephemeral events. By mobilizing historical fragments and traces excluded from official History, Quignard reconstructs historical landscapes, pursues alternative truths, deconstructs authoritative historiography, and ultimately builds a pluralistic historical vision.

Quignard’s literary practice centers on self-actualization among ordinary and marginalized individuals. His narratives depict traumatized, socially excluded figures who ultimately discover existential meaning and contribute historical significance. Like Meaume’s artistic practice, Quignard’s writing affirms that ordinary lives – however marked by trauma and discontinuity – constitute indispensable historical symbols. Through his distinctive historico-literary approach and developmental narratives, Quignard illuminates the universal relevance of marginalized selfhood in contemporary society. Just as the semiotic self engages in perpetual self-dialogue, historical meaning continuously regenerates through each ordinary life’s narrative.