Le Livre de l’Espérance et le mouvement du débat

This paper reconsiders the criticism levelled against the “debaz” in the Livre de l’Espérance, and argues that Alain Chartier does not reject in fact the principle of conflicting dialogue, so significant for the form of his poems: if this treatise gives way to the voice of religious authority, we can still hear a toned down protest against the world order, so that the movement of the debat, which is essential to human consciousness, represents a salutary experience of the limits of thought.