Michel Butor is one of the most prolific writers of post-war French
literature. The size of his production is equalled only by its diversity.
Originally a novelist, Butor has developed into an author of “open works”,
opera, poetry, dream texts and children’s books. This study is a search for
unity in the midst of this diversity. Taking as our starting point Butor’s
adoption of Rimbaud’ s famous assertion ·’Il faut changer la vie”, we elaborate
a perspective of commitment to change in both writing and reality which we
apply to the four most developed areas of Butor’s production: the novels, the
experimental texts, the Illustrations series and the Mati~re de Reves series.
Devoting one section of the thesis to each of these four areas, we examine the
parallel between the formal evolution of Butor’s production, the change that
can be seen in his writing, and the thematic evolution, the change that he
would like to see in reality. In the novel section we discuss Butor’s treat
ment of the myth of imperial dominance as the expression of modern western
man’s existential outlook and its implications for the reader of novels
together with Butor’s own, different existential outlook and his consequent
abandonment of the novel genre. In the second section we examine Butor’s
conception of the relationship between man and place together with his exp(,ri
mental attempts to solve the problems raised by the novel form, the solution
finally appearing in the thought 1?ehind the “open work”. The Illustrations
section contains a study of Butor’s collaboration with the art world, his
development of the corporate text and the elaboration of the concept of collage
reality, a concept designed to replace the imperial organisation criticised
in the novels. Finally in the Mati~re de Rives section we analyse Butor’s
method of using his own literary career as an example of the re-integration,
re-organisation and attitude required for the construction and maintenance of
the new, collage reality.