Traité du bref

What do we mean by “brief”? Behind the apparent obviousness of a discourse that takes little time lies a complex object, rarely examined for its own sake. Beyond the great diversity of short forms, this book sets out to define the discursive phenomenon constituted by brevity—an ambivalent notion that appears simultaneously through the lenses of time and space. Rather than reducing the brief to efficient concision or to a symptom of contemporary acceleration, the book explores its different facets and the ambivalent experience it gives rise to. Often perceived either as a problem—frustration in the face of the ephemeral—or, conversely, as an asset in poetic writing, brevity calls for a reading attentive to its paradoxes. Before judging it, we must understand how it shapes our perception of time. At the crossroads of the philosophy of time, communication studies, and aesthetics, Traité du bref offers a theoretical inquiry into a notion that is omnipresent yet little studied, drawing on examples from artistic, literary, and media discourse.