The pandemic reminds us that, with the catastrophes to which biodiversity is subjected, with the disruption of ecosystems, much more dangerous and fatal viruses can appear. Also, disturbed in its quietude and reminded of its own mortality, the human being knows the same anguishes which were those of all the victims of the epidemics which formerly devastated the populations and of which the literature was able to account in multiple occasions. Daniel Defoe’s Diary of the Plague, which is very rich (...) in lessons, bears witness to the similarities in attitude between the centuries: disruption of the economy, unemployment, famine, rumors, the search for false remedies, confinement, transgressions. Conjuring up confinement through writing is a remedy that tempts some. With the sound diary of the writer Wajdi Mouawad it is from the inside that the experience of confinement is given to understand. (shrink)