"Death of the subject", "return of the subject", Postmodern subject" - modern criticism is not short of such notions and formulae. To know precisely what these mean is, however, another matter entirely... Whilst understanding the contemporary poses an intellectual challenge of one kind, defining the subject poses another of equal importance. For this reason, it seemed methodologically appropriate to define the specificities of the subject today by considering the three dimensions it assumes in the works of contemporary writers - namely the scholarly, the fabulous and the fictional. The corpus of works considered in this study comprises about thirty imaginary lives and meditative essays - literary forms which have developed mainly during the last quarter of the 20th century. These texts, by four relatively well-established literary figures, (P. Michon, G. Macé, P. Quignard and F. Delay) mingle both fiction and reality. It was firstly necessary to determine how the break with the Formalist era had affected the writing of the authors considered. In this regard, they were found to be locking for a more concrete way of self-expression thus avoiding the potential pitfalls inherent in subjective writing. that this re-analysis of subjectivity in the chosen texts equally affects the delicate characterises our times and illustrative of one of the forms of lyricism in contemporary prose. Such tensions in contemporary writing do not lead so much to rupture as to the beginnings of a new configuration. With a lightness, a spectral luminosity and a depth of complexity with a translucent quality, the hologram represents a rich set of metaphors for contemporary writing and the dynamic of the character within our texts. Neither an active force within the world nor disabused by it, the contemporary subject is above all a dreamer constructing its own worlds in which to take place ; altering the present in order to approach others, the contemporary subject presents itself as open to relationships with others, and constitutes a new lyrical entity brought forth by a whispering voice between the real world and the imagined.