Between Roussel and Rousseau, or Constraint and Confession

Roussel and Rousseau are two names that one is scarcely used to associating. Nonetheless, their joined presence in my title should not lead one to anticipate some unexpected revelations on subterranean structural analogies, eventual thematic affinities, or even hypothetical stylistic connections discernible beyond the obvious phonetic heritage of these two writers. If such links exist (and I reserve the right to show, someday, that they do indeed exist, even if they have not often been perceived), ¹ my object today is not to study them. These two great names figure here only as flag-bearers, as emblems, as mythical godfathers of two literary attitudes, or rather two ways, supposedly antagonistic, of going about the act of writing: