This article explores the distinct nature of elegy in Carco’s work (poetry, prose poetry, and novels). This initially plaintive dimension, under the influence of elegiac poetry from Laforgue to Jammes and Bataille, is quite early on shaped by irony and undergoes a shift to prose, which is more capable of expressing the demonic torments of urban existence (sex, alcohol, social position). Writing is a “disconcerting demon.”
