La subversion pour questionner son époque : Mirbeau et Huysmans : analyse comparative du Calvaire (1886), de L’Abbé Jules (1888), ainsi que de Là-bas (1891) et En route (1895)

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Supervisors: Reverseau, Anne ; Desclaux, Jessica
Faculty: Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres
Degree label: Master [120] en langues et lettres anciennes et modernes, à finalité approfondie
Abstract: enIn Mirbeau’s Calvaire (1886) and L’Abbé Jules (1888) and in Joris-Karl Huysmans’ Là-bas (1891) and En route (1895), the concept of subversion (upheaval, reversal of principles) assumes a special colour. Theses novels are neither revolutionary manifestos, nor satires, nor pamphlets, yet they have something deeply rebellious and revolting. By an imaginative poetics made of irony, cynicism and violence, the two authors notice as much as they build a peculiarly pessimistic et dualistic vision of humanity and the world. Unsatisfied by the ideological answers of their time to the question, notably, of the dialectic between nature and culture, Mirbeau and Huysmans give novels whose acerbity is at the height of what they find opprobrious. They seek by a chocking writing to have collapsed a vision of humanity that they judge aporetic, in order to let nothing but an empty space of imagination, as free as terrible.