Dissertations / Theses on the topic '1689-1761'

Samuel Richardson's second novel, Clarissa: or, The History of a Young Lady, one of the longest novels in English, has appeared in dozens of significantly different editions, many of them abridgments. This study examines the means by which Richardson and later editors altered the text of Clarissa, primarily by working with three variables: its epistolary format, its length, and its explicit moral lessons.The first half of the study reviews relevant scholarly research and traces Richardson's uses of internal editors in his four editions of the novel. Richardson's omniscient editor, the most visible and conventional of the internal editors of ClarissR, operates both inside and outside the epistolary framework of the novel. Inside, the editorial voice adds identifying tags to letters and summarizes missing letters. Outside, the editor emphasizes moral elements of the novel by means of a preface and postscript, numerous footnotes, a list of principal characters, and a judgmental table of contents. Richardson expanded the role of this editor in each of his successive editions.Richardson's mastery of the epistolary format further appears in his use of all the major correspondents as internal editors. Jack Belford operates most visibly, assembling correspondence to and from Clarissa and Lovelace to vindicate Clarissa's memory and instruct possible readers. Belford's Conclusion serves a similar function to the nameless editor's preface and postscript. Richardson also gave Clarissa, Anna Howe, and Lovelace editorial tasks, including introducing and summarizing letters, footnoting, and altering letters before showing them to someone other than the intended recipient.Each major correspondent also has a unique individual editorial function.The study's second half analyzes and compares seven abridgments of Clarissa published between 1868 and 1971, concluding that all seven drastically change the novel (yet in differing fashions) despite their retention of its plot and epistolary format.All seven external editors alter Richardson's stated intentions. Four variables shape the comparison: stated editorial intent, omissions, alterations, and additions. An appendix lists the contents of all seven abridgments by individual letter.
Department of English

This thesis examines Richardson's representation in Clarissa of the heroine's triumphant death. It considers Clarissa's triumph in relation to the implicit doctrine of freedom of the will and the constitution of the self. Clarissa and Lovelace represent the uncontrollable freedom of the human will and exemplify its potentiality either to choose the good or to subject itself to the desire for power and self-gratification. Chapter one of this thesis discusses Clarissa in relation to the theories of several current literary theoreticians whose work constitutes a response to Kant's ideas on freedom and ethical decisions. The remaining chapters seek through close reading and interpretation of key scenes in the novel to understand what Richardson meant to represent through Clarissa's triumphant death. The argument reassesses Richardson's use of exemplary figures to embody his spiritual and moral ideas. It addresses the problem of ambiguity in Clarissa's forgiveness of her persecutors. Richardson's representation of Clarissa's triumph has both worldly and spiritual aspects. Acting always in accordance with principled choice (second-order evaluations), Clarissa resists all attempts to subjugate her; she reconstitutes her identity to become a Christian heroine. She achieves spiritual transcendence through penitence for her errors, forgiveness of those who have injured her and complete resignation to the will of God. Lovelace's misuse of free will and his refusal to relinquish his libertine identity and reform lead to his final worldly and spiritual defeat. Through their lives and deaths Clarissa and Lovelace demonstrate that individuals are responsible for the choices they make, for the identities they establish, and that they must accept the consequences of their choices.

Le foisonnement des personnages dans les romans de samuel richardson est tel qu'il invite a definir une problematique qui soit a la fois reflet de la conscience du romancier a l'oeuvre dans la creation litteraire et transposition ou distanciation critique. Certe, l'intention premiere du romancier des d'instruire son lecteur. Mais les personnages de ses romans ont aussi d'autres fonctions, moins apparentes, et les ressorts qui les animent relevent souvent du non-dit. Il s'agit donc de nrespecter a la fois le dessein moralisateur du romancier en examinant les attitudes de ses personnages devant la societe tout en elucidant le sens des silences et du non-dit qui emaillent, de facon paradoxale, ces romans prolixes et qui revelent, peut-etre davantage, l'essence de l'esprit createur a l'oeuvre dans la peinture des personnages. L'etude du personnage pose des problemes qui sont encore loin d'etre resolus. Un examne des relations gemellaires entre les protagonistes et leurs correspondants permet de degager des lois susceptibles de devoiler des aspects contradictoires du romancier. L'unite structurale de la trilogie depend des personnages narrateurs qui se repondent d'un roman a l'autre, comme en echo
The multiplicity of characters in richardson's novels is such that it calls for a definition of the field of research. The present study aims at giving both a reflection of the novelist's conscience at work within the literary creation and a transposition or critical distancing. The novelist's primary aim is to instruct and edify his reader. But his characters also have other functions and more hidden motives. The relationships between richardson's characters and the society in which they live are charged with meaning. However, paradoxically, the silences and tacit assumptions peppered in these prolix novels are perhaps of greater significance in so far as they reveal the essence of the creative spirit at work in the painting of characters. The study of character poses problems that are far from being resolved. The main interest of an examination of the twin relations between the protagonists and their correspondents in richardson's epistolary novels lies in the fact that they disclose the novelist's contradictory aspects

L'etude de l'ordre et du desordre a travers le corps et l'esprit fait ressortir la complexite et l'unicite des romans epistolaires de samuel richardson. L'ordre disparait au profit de dereglements qui affectent l'esprit et l'organisme des personnages, le corps du texte et le corpus romanesque. Les deux principes entretiennent un rapport dialectique et l'auteur presente une coincidence des contraires. Les romans tendent vers l'ordre qui n'est envisage qu'apres des moments d'epreuves necessaires a la purification et a la sublimation des troubles. Toutefois, la quete de l'ordre reste incomplete et les deux elements sont indissociables. Cette dialectique (fusionnelle) informe l'esthetique romanesque. L'ecrivain rejette la linearite et integre l'ellipse a ses oeuvres, qui contournent leur centre et melent realite et theatralite. Le texte progresse en regressant et sollicite le lecteur. Le roman, multiple et plurivoque, se dedouble, se renverse et nie tout manicheisme. Sa structure l'apparente a un jardin a l'anglaise l'ecrivain joue avec les conventions litteraires pour souligner le caractere paradoxal de son corpus, qui semble echapper a toutes les instances ordonnatrices, pour s'achever sur l'impossibilite de conclure. L'interpenetration de l'ordre et du desordre proposee par richardson donne naissance a un nouvel ordre romanesque
The complexity and uniqueness of samuel richardson's epistolary novels become apparent through the study of order and disorder in the light of body and mind. Order is thwarted by the troubles affecting the characters' minds and bodies, the body of the text, and the literary corpus. The two principles are united in a dialectical pattern in which the writer underlines the coincidence of contraries. The novels strive after order, which is only contemplated after trials necessary to the purification and sublimation of perturbations. However the quest for order remains incomplete, and the two elements are inseparable. The fusional dialectics influences the novels' aesthetics. Richardson rejects linearity and integrates ellipsis into his works, which revolve around their centre, and mix reality and theatricality. The text progresses at the same time as it regresses, and requires the reader's participation. Inversion and doubleness are at the core of the novels, which become multiple and plurivocal, and avoid any kind of manicheism. Their structure is akin to that of an eighteenth- century english garden. The writer plays with literary conventions to show the paradoxes of the corpus, which seems to escape the control of the various organizing instances and ends on the impossibility to come to a conclusion. The interpenetration of order and disorder is organized by richardson to create a new novelistic order

Les passions, que fustigent les philosophes depuis les anciens grecs, les prédicateurs et les romanciers, constituent le thème essentiel des romans de Samuel Richardson. Il les développe, de l'amour à la haine du moi, depuis leur éveil jusqu'à leurs excès et leurs conséquences. Favorisées par le tempérament anglais et par la condition de la femme considérée comme l'objet prometteur des passions des hommes, les passions sont à l'origine des vices de la société du dix-huitième siècle qui n'apportent que souffrance et malheur. Richardson défend la femme et prône chez les deux sexes la chasteté, la délicatesse, la sensibilité et l'amour du prochain. Il met en garde deux qui, abuses par leurs passions, oublient que la vie temporelle n'est qu'une vie probatoire en vue de la vie éternelle; il les encourage à se reformer par le repentir avant que le destin ne les surprenne dans une mort prématurée. Richardson, moraliste chrétien, conseille une éducation fondée sur l'obéissance à la loi morale et sur l'adhésion à la foi en dieu. Richardson, romancier, analyste du coeur humain, fait pénétrer le lecteur dans les profondeurs de l'inconscient de ses personnages, par le biais d'une composition habile, aux intrigues bien construites, aux dialogues vivants et au style qui donne à l'expression des passions une authenticité jamais atteinte jusqu'ici. Chantre de la raison et de la sensibilité, Richardson servira de modèle aux romanciers et son oeuvre donnera le ton au roman sentimental
Passions, criticised by the greeks, preachers and novelists, are the essential themes in the novels of Samuel Richardson. He develops these, from one extreme passion to the other, from their awakenings to their excesses and their consequences. Favoured by the english temperament, and by the condition of the woman considered as the promising object of men, passions are the sources of the vices of eighteenth-century bringing suffering and calamity. Richardson defends the woman and commends chastity, delicacy, sensibility and generosity for both sexes. He warns those who, misled by their passions, forget that temporal life is not but a life of trial if compared to eternal life. Richardson encourages men to change their ways by repenting before destiny surprizes them by an untimely death. Richardson, a christian moralist, advises an education based on obeying the moral code and an adhesion to faith in god. As a novelist and an analyst of the human heart, he invites the reader to penetrate into the subconscious of his characters in his shillful composition, well-constructed plots, lively dialogues and a style which gives to the expression of passions an authenticity never before attained. Eulogist of reason and sensibility, Richardson served a model for women novelists and his work gave a tone to the sentimental novel

The edition of Pamela a person reads will affect his or her perception of Pamela's ascent into aristocratic society. Richardson's revisions to the fourteenth edition of Pamela, published posthumously in 1801, change Pamela's character from the 1740 first edition in such a way as to make her social climb more believable to readers outside the novel and to "readers" inside the novel. Pamela alters her language, her actions, and her role in the household by the end of the first edition; in the fourteenth edition, however, she changes in little more than her title. Pamela might begin as a novel that threatens the fabric of class hierarchies, but it ends-both within the plot and externally throughout its many editions-as a novel that stabilizes and strengthens social norms.

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Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)
Apesar de obter sua maior projeção no século XIX, o gênero romance já se destacava no horizonte literário europeu do século XVIII e apresentava grandes transformações. Ele se firmou em meio a mudanças sociais, políticas e econômicas importantes. Este estudo focaliza duas obras desse período, Pâmela escrita por Samuel Richardson e Júlia, ou A nova Heloísa escrita por Rousseau, na Inglaterra e França, respectivamente, e considera características do gênero emergente como individualismo, sentimentalismo e moralismo que são destacadas nas duas obras. São realizadas também análises de aspectos como personagens, tempo e espaço, entre outros, a fim de verificar como essas categorias da narrativa se manifestavam na época no gênero nascente. O contexto em que as duas narrativas foram produzidas é também descrito e busca-se determinar sua influência enquanto elemento fundamental para a constituição do gênero. Por outro lado, a representação da mulher nessas duas obras é focalizada de maneira a demonstrar que o romance, ao mesmo tempo em que retratava a sociedade que o produzia e a posição que a mulher ocupava nela, ajudou também a forjá-la, alterando-lhe os conceitos e os comportamentos. A análise da mulher parte da representação feita em Pâmela e Júlia, ou A nova Heloísa no que se refere ao casamento, ao sentimento e à morte delas enquanto personagens femininas criadas por escritores homens.
Although the novel achieved its maturity in the nineteenth century, it was already present in the literary landscape during the previous century. It became consolidated in a time of important social, political and economic changes. This study focuses on two novels of this period, Pamela, by Samuel Richardson and Julie, or The new Heloise written by Rousseau and published in England and France, respectively, and considers characteristics of the new literary genre, such as individualism, sentimentalism and moralization, each pointed out in the two works. Other aspects such as characters, time and space are analyzed with the objective of observing how they were manifested in the period when the novel was appearing as a genre. The context where the two narratives were produced is also described so as to determine its influence as a fundamental element in the constitution of the novel. The representation of the woman in these two works is also considered as a means to show that the novel, even while reflecting the society that produced it, also helped to mold it. The analysis of the woman is based on the representation in Pamela and Julie, or The new Heloise in as much as it considers their marriage, sentiment and death as female characters created by authors who were men.

Le problème de la communication, et pas seulement du danger des liaisons, est au cœur du roman épistolaire de manière générale et de Clarissa de Samuel Richardson en particulier. Sans cesse menacée d'interruption, la communication représentée dans la diégèse du deuxième roman de Richardson influe également sur le sens et relève à ce titre de ce que Janet Altman a appelé l'épistolarité. Cette étude se concentre sur le code de la communication représentée dans l'œuvre et saisit la lettre dans l’économie de l’information toute particulière dont elle participe, à la croisée d'une communication interne entre ses personnages et des exigences d'une communication externe qui voit le matériau épistolaire affluer vers le Lecteur. Elle s'efforce de souligner à quel point le scénario romanesque est informé par la nature des communications au travers desquelles il s’exprime ainsi qu'à travers les communications auxquelles il donne lieu (Clarissa étant l'objet d'âpres négociations entre son auteur et ses lecteurs), tout comme il informe à son tour la nature de ces communications. L'examen de la communication dans et autour du roman de Richardson met en évidence l'existence d'une poétique qui est aussi une économie. L'histoire de Clarissa n'est pas tant l'histoire de ses lettres que celle de ses communications
The problem of communication, and not only that of the danger of the liaisons, is at the heart of the epistolary novel in general and of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa in particular. Constantly threatened with interruption, the communication represented in the diegesis of Richardson's second novel also informs meaning and thus belongs to what Janet Altman called epistolarity. This study concentrates on the code of communication represented in the work and endeavors to grasp the letter in its particular economy of communication, at the crossroads of internal communication between its characters and the demands of an external communication that requires that the epistolary material be oriented towards the reader. This study strives to underline to what extent the novelistic scenario is informed by the nature of the communications through which it expresses itself as well as by the communications it produces among its readers in the shape of letters to the author. The examination of communication in and around Richardson's novel bears witness to the existence of a poetics that is also an economy. The history of Clarissa is not so much that of its letters as that of its communications

This thesis examines representations of trust in selected British sentimental novels of the eighteenth century. It focuses principally on the manner in which sentimental prose fiction reflects and participates in the shift from premodern to modern formations of trust. Commenting on the nature of modern trust, Anthony Giddens claims that, with the move to modernity, trust relations in the intimate sphere become increasingly dependent on emotional mutuality, while trust in institutions becomes increasingly impersonal and disengaged from assessments of moral character.
My work explores this dual shift in three sentimental novels. It first analyzes Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) and contends that Richardson denies the concept of honor its epistemological role in practical deliberations. The denial of the epistemology of honor uncouples the mechanism of personal trust from assessments of role and role performance and thus makes the trust in persons in the intimate sphere less dependent on institutional forms of trust. To replace honor's role in the formation of trust, Richardson proposes that the sentiments can provide reliable grounds for trust in the intimate sphere. However, he denies the sentiments a role in the formation of an encompassing social trust among strangers and mere acquaintances. The thesis proceeds to read Henry Fielding's Amelia (1751). In order to argue that Fielding envisioned divergent grounds for trust relations, it maintains that Fielding considers trust relations in the intimate sphere and trust relations in public life as based on the sentiments and fair distribution respectively. To conclude, the thesis investigates Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) to uncover the manner in which Goldsmith distinguishes personal trust in the intimate sphere from general system trust, which Goldsmith ultimately envisions as an ontological trust in providence.

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
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Resumo: Este trabalho se dedica ao estudo do romance epistolar 'Clarissa, or the history of a young lady', de autoria do inglês Samuel Richardson, publicado entre os de anos 1747-48. O propósito é realizar uma pesquisa historiográfica através da interpretação da narrativa literária. A obra, objeto deste estudo, recria muitas das tensões sociais, políticas e religiosas latentes na sociedade inglesa do século XVIII. Os percalços vividos pela heroína da trama, entre o campo e a cidade, permitem analisar as relações sociais e de gênero da Inglaterra das Luzes. A trama conta a história de Clarissa, donzela d aristocracia rural inglesa que recebe a herança do avô, motivando disputas familiares. O primogênito preterido convence a família a casá-la com um homem odioso, para evitar sua independência e lucrar com o negócio. Clarissa se recusa ao matrimônio e passa a ser perseguida dentro de casa. Para escapar da tirania, ela foge para Londres com Lovelace, libertino que lhe faz a corte contra a vontade de sua família. Seu desejo de autonomia é interrompido quando seu raptor a aprisiona num bordel e a violenta. Para preservar sua vontade de virtude e a independência de seu espírito, Clarissa escolhe a morte como única saída moral possível. Com efeito, meu objetivo foi entender aquela sociedade a partir das páginas do romance, cuja análise, também, derivou de questões e referências exteriores à trama
Abstract: This work is dedicated to the novel 'Clarissa, or the history of a Young lady', written by Samuel Richardson, and published in 1747-48. My purpose was to make a historiographic research by using a literary narrative. This novel creates, in a literary way, many of the most important social, political, and religious conflicts of the Eighteenth Century English society. The mishaps of the life of the novel's protagonist, between the country and the city, allowed me to analyze the social and gender relations in the Enlightenment England. The plot tells us the story of Clarissa, an aristocratic maiden in rural England. She inherits an estate from her grandfather, which provokes a familiar disturbance. The deprecated old brother convinces the family to marry her to an odious man, to avoid her independence and to profit from the business. She refuses the marriage and her persecution begins at home. In order to escape from tyranny, she fled to London with the libertine Lovelace, who courts her against her family's will. Her wish for autonomy is interrupted when his abductor imprisons and rapes in a brothel. She wishes virtue and an independent soul, and that's why she chooses death, as the only possible way to maintain her moral intact. Indeed, my goal with this research was to understand the mentioned society from the pages of the novel,whose analysis also comes from questions and references external to the plot
Mestrado
Politica, Memoria e Cidade
Mestre em História

L'amour,exprimé par une symptomatologie très organisée et une série de duos qui retentissent comme autant de chants d'opéra,gère un conflit Terre/Ciel qui réorganise tous les rapports des personnages en y introduisant l'image du désir coupable. . . Ce schéma,qui semble être celui de La Nouvelle Héloi͏̈se permet à Julie et Saint-Preux de suivre dans leur parcours amoureux un ordre dialectique : Julie est tour à tour sujette à une brusque "conversion" puis à une plus lente "réversion". D'autres dialectes de l'amour se font entendre dans cette partition : la passion de Claire,tout d'abord,d'essence homosexuelle ; les amours d'Edouard,ensuite,beaucoup plus anodines. Richardson et Prévost,de fait,avaient déjà plus ou moins esquissé ce mouvement "vers l'intérieur" de l'amour de Julie,précurseur,dès 1761,de ce que sera plus tard l'anima romantique
The novel induces Julie and Saint-Preux to feel a "dialectic" love. Other dialects can be heard,most of them inherited from Richardson and Prevost. 'La Nouvelle Héloi͏̈se' is really the first romantic novel. .

Cette thèse propose d'étudier la fiction anglaise de la première moitié du dix-huitième siècle en regard de la médecine populaire de la même époque. Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollett and Laurence Sterne utilisent certains éléments du discours médical afin de justifier leur entreprise littéraire. Selon eux, la fiction peut prévenir le lecteur contre le vice (c'est l'époque de l'inoculation), ou même le guérir de ses maux. En suivant les trois étapes de la démarche médicale—décrire, prescrire, guérir— cette étude interdisciplinaire examine autour de quelles représentations de l'individu les discours fictionnels et médicaux se rejoignent, s'opposent, ou plus simplement se répondent. La description du vivant, essentielle à la médecine, devient l'intérêt de la fiction réaliste, qui se réfère métaphoriquement à certains schémas médicaux comme celui de la circulation sanguine. Les auteurs de fiction, comme ceux la médecine populaire et didactique, développent de nombreuses stratégies prescriptives : la lecture est alors censée aider le lecteur à organiser sa vie quotidienne, et guide la façon dont il doit s'occuper de son corps. Enfin, la fiction comme la médecine promettent de guérir le lecteur par le mouvement de l'exercice et de la purge, de la pensée et du rire. La satire opère un traitement plus corrosif que les écrivains justifient par la violence que le traitement médical inflige au corps souffrant
This study of Eighteenth-Century fiction and medicine (1719-1771) aims at presenting an interdisciplinary analysis of both discourses. Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollett and Laurence Sterne use some elements of the medical discourse to justify their literary enterprise. They tend to argue that fiction can prevent the reader against vice, or even cure him. To study how medical and fictional discourse interact with each other, this analysis follows the tree steps of the medical process—description, prescription and treatment. The description of life—so essential to the medical thought—is becoming the vital concern of realistic fiction, which assimilates some medical principles such as circulation. Many prescriptive strategies are enacted by authors of fiction and medical doctors who write about domestic life, suggesting some proper ways of dealing with one's body. Finally, both fiction and medicine offer to cure through movement, by exercising and purging, thinking and laughing. Corrosive satirical laughs are assimilated to a certain healing violence often associated with the medical treatment

« Je ne vois pas pourquoi on blâmerait une fille comme Nanette, de profiter, pour mettre le plus haut prix à sa personne et à son art, de la folie et du désordre extrême de vos riches libertins ? » - s’interroge la Leontion de Wieland. Ce « désordre extrême » n’est qu’une des caractéristiques de l’existence insouciante exprimant le triomphe du libertinage des mœurs à l’époque où l’attirance des sociétés européennes pour la conduite libertine, réelle ou imaginaire, trouve son reflet dans les littératures anglaise, française et allemande. La présente thèse démontre ainsi la diversité du libertinage littéraire en Europe dans la seconde moitié du dix-huitième siècle. Les romans épistolaires Clarisse Harlove de Richardson en Angleterre, Les Liaisons dangereuses de Laclos en France et Menander und Glycerion de Wieland en Allemagne nous ont paru les meilleurs exemples afin d’esquisser cette diversité et d’en comparer les aspects. Le regard que les trois auteurs portent sur les lois de l’ordre social, la religion et les mœurs traduit une vision originale du monde. Et bien que cette vision ne dépasse pas le cadre de la fiction romanesque, l’étude de leurs œuvres met en relief un certain nombre de données propres au climat sociopolitique de l’époque tout comme des éléments autobiographiques ayant contribué à l’élaboration du modèle qui est le leur du libertin masculin ou féminin. Notre objectif est d’étudier la richesse littéraire de ce modèle de libertins et de leur conduite, d’ailleurs propre aux deux sexes, sa complexité et sa singularité en procédant par rapprochements et contrastes, similitudes et différences
“I don’t see why a girl like Nanette should be blamed for profiting from the madness and extreme disorderly conduct of your libertines, in order to set the highest price to her person and her art,” Wieland’s Leontion says to herself. This “extreme disorderly conduct” is only one of the characteristics of that kind of carefree existence which is an expression of the triumph of libertine mores at a time when the fascination of European societies for libertinism, whether real or imaginary, is reflected in English, French and German Literature. The following thesis thus demonstrates the diversity of libertine literature in Europe in the second half of the XVIIIth century. In order to analyse this diversity and compare its different aspects, I have chosen three epistolary novels that I consider to be paradigms in the matter: Clarissa Harlowe by Richardson in England, Les Liaisons dangereuses by Laclos in France and Menander und Glycerion by Wieland in Germany. The implicit or explicit judgement that these three authors pass on the laws of social order, on religion, and on the mores of the period is emblematic of an original vision of the world. Although this vision is expressed within the limits of works of fiction, the study of these works highlights a number of elements that are specific to the social and political atmosphere of the time, as well as certain autobiographical elements which have contributed to the social paradigm of feminine and masculine libertinism to which they subscribe. The purpose of this thesis is to study these literary works as rich sources of information on the libertines and their conduct as an accepted social model for men and women alike, and to discuss the complexity and singular nature of this phenomenon by a differential treatment of the various themes through which it can be identified

Le roman illustré du XVIIIe siècle est une forme particulière de l'illustration et un cas exemplaire du rapport texte/image: les éditeurs-libraires européens commandaient des dessins, gravés sur cuivre au burin et à l'eau-forte puis insérés dans des ouvrages avec figures ou rassemblés en recueils d'estampes. Dépassant la bibliophilie des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, de même que les approches rhétoriques et linguistiques qui rapportent l'image au texte (allégorie, système de l'image et mise en série des images), l'étude sémiologique du livre illustré met en évidence sa dimension visuelle en articulant le jeu des corps, des regards et de l'espace dans le texte et dans l'image, notamment dans les tableaux et les scènes. Notre approche figurale veut cerner ce qui travaille la représentation romanesque et l'imagination du lecteur-spectateur; sont explorés successivement quatre romans (Marivaux, La Vie de Marianne; Richardson, Clarissa, traduite par l'abbé Prévost sous le titre de Clarisse Harlove; Rousseau, Julie ou La Nouvelle Héloïse; Rétif de la Bretonne, Le Paysan perverti) et les séries d'illustrations publiées dans leurs éditions en français entre 1736 et 1788 (d'après Schley, Chevaux, Cochin, Gravelot, Eisen, Moreau le Jeune, Chodowiecki, Binet. . . ), complétées par d'autres images (Wale, Stothard, Johannot, Staal. . . ); le dispositif de la représentation s'appuie sur un espace double cristallisant les enjeux symboliques de ces œuvres: identité de Marianne, vertu de Clarisse, réunion de Julie et de Saint-Preux, perversion d'Edmond. Lettres et estampes du roman épistolaire participent du montage du texte et de l'image qui fait entrevoir ce que le texte refuse ou échoue à dire
The 18th century illustrated novel is not only a particular feature of illustration, it also reveals text/image relations. Indeed european booksellers and publishers commitionned line engravings and etchings, inserted in books sold avec figures (with plates) or collected in volumes. Without ignoring the 18th and 19th century bibliophily nor the rhetorical and linguistic perspectives comparing image with text (allegory, iconic system, iconic paradigm), the semiotic study underlines the visuel aspect of illustrated books, thus exploring links between looks, bodies and spaces in text and image, especially in tableaux (pictures) and scenes. Our figural study is an attempt to define the issue of representation at stake in those works and to grasp the workings of reader-spectator's imagination. We analyse four novels (Marivaux, La Vie de Marianne; Richardson, Clarissa, translated by the Abbé Prévost as Clarisse Harlove; Rousseau, Julie ou La Nouvelle Héloïse; Rétif de la Bretonne, Le Paysan perverti), the series of illustrations published in their editions in french between 1736 and 1788 (after Schley, Chevaux, Cochin, Gravelot, Eisen, Moreau le Jeune, Chodowiecki, Binet. . . ) as well as other images (Wale, Stothard, Johannot, Staal. . . ). The device of representation is based on a double space focusing on symbolic questions of the novels: Marianne's identity, Clarissa's virtue, reunion between Julie and Saint-Preux, Edmond's perversion. Letters and engravings in the illustrated epistolary novel belong to the montage (setting) of text and image, which shows what the text refuses or fails to express

Cette thèse a pour objet l’étude des influences du libertinage galant anglais et français sur la création allemande du dernier tiers du XVIIIe siècle. Le succès de diffusion outre-Rhin de quatre romans de séduction emblématiques du genre (Clarisse Harlove, Les Egarements du coeur et de l’esprit, Le Paysan perverti et Les Liaisons dangereuses), plusieurs fois traduits et commentés par la critique contemporaine, légitime la recherche d’échos au sein de la production allemande de la fin du siècle ; le recensement de preuves scientifiques d’intérêt (aveux d’influences, commentaires critiques ou intertextualité explicite) conduit à désigner six écrivains germaniques, lecteurs enthousiastes dont l’oeuvre est entrée en résonance avec la tradition du libertinage galant : Christoph Martin Wieland, Sophie von La Roche, Wilhelm Heinse, Ludwig Tieck, Clemens Brentano et Jean Paul. Révélée par la confrontation des romans allemands avec les « oeuvres sources », la reprise des motifs essentiels du libertinage galant, – typologie des personnages, stratégies de conquête et épisodes-clés des intrigues –, n’est pas dissociable d’une pratique du détournement ; l’usage parodique de certains procédés narratifs traditionnels et les jeux d’« imitation viciée » témoignent d’une prise de distance dans laquelle s’affirment à la fois l’originalité des héritiers et la sensibilité « plus germanique » d’une littérature en plein essor. Réorientant de manière significative certains principes fondamentaux de la quête galante, les dernières oeuvres allemandes infléchissent la doctrine libertine initiale et ouvrent sur de nouvelles interrogations existentielles, qui annoncent les figures désenchantées du XIXe siècle
This dissertation is a study of the influence of “gallant” libertine literature from England and France on German literary creation in the last three decades of the 18th century. The number of translations and critical commentaries which appeared at the time testifies to the successful impact in Germany of four novels of seduction, the very emblems of the genre, namely Clarissa Harlowe, Les Égarements du coeur et de l’esprit, Le Paysan perverti and Les Liaisons dangereuses. It is therefore legitimate to search for echoes of those works in the German production of the late 18th century. The survey of scientific evidence of the attention paid to those novels (openly acknowledged influence, critical comments or explicit marks of intertextuality) results in the selection of six German writers, also enthusiastic readers of the books, whose works display a reflection of the tradition of “gallant” libertine literature, viz. Christoph Martin Wieland, Sophie von La Roche, Wilhelm Heinse, Ludwig Tieck, Clemens Brentano and Jean Paul. The confrontation between the German novels and the “sources” reveals the presence of the main motifs of “gallant” libertine literature: typology of characters, strategy of seduction and key phases in the plot. Yet it is inseparable from a systematic use of distortion. The parody of a series of narrative techniques and the recourse to “perverted imitation” bear witness to a process of distanciation in which both the originality of the literary heirs and the specifically German sensibility of a fast expanding literature assert themselves. By giving new directions to certain fundamental principles of the libertine quest, the latest German works in the corpus alter the initial libertine doctrine and pave the way for new areas of existential questions, thus foreshadowing the disillusioned artistic figures of the 19th century