La Préface de Mademoiselle de Maupin by Théophile Gautier

Recent studies have demonstrated how the fin-de-siècle period could be seen as a cosmopolitan time. My project aims at re-evaluating the works of Théophile Gautier and Oscar Wilde, analysing Gautier’s influence on the English writer as well as proposing a new examination of their aesthetic doctrines suggesting that digression and « fantaisie » are the main consistent inconsistencies at the heart of their artistic project.

I am a second-year DPhil student at Oxford University working on comparative literature. It demonstrates how Gautier conceived Art as cosmopolitan announcing English and French fin-de-siècle writers.Īfter having done my undergraduate and master courses at Nanterre Université as an English Literature student, I came to teach French language at Oxford for three years, and decided to pursue in academia in England.

What is a cosmopolitan text? What form does it take? This article proposes an analysis of Théophile Gautier’s doctrine and works in the light of those crucial questions. If the circulation of literature out of its national frontiers takes part in the elaboration of a cosmopolitan literature, at the core of the question is the exportation of the aesthetic of a text outside of its national space. Recent studies have analysed the relations between XIXth century literature and cultural cosmopolitanism, which has led scholars to envisage the fin-de-siècle in Europe as a cosmopolitan moment. Imprimer ou télécharger cet article Claire BITOUN

La Préface de Mademoiselle de Maupin by Théophile Gautier