« L’écriture sociale » du vêtement dans le décor balzacien
« The social writing » of clothes in the Balzacian décor

Summary/Abstract: In the Comédie Humaine, description holds a privileged role, due to both its importance in the scheme of the work and the functions it accomplishes. The profusion of descriptive elements is often regarded as a lack of style, a disdain for the artistic rules of the novel: the critics reject this accumulation of heterogeneous elements, apparently impossible to assimilate by the structure of the plot, this descriptive meticulousness, this baroque narrative lacework which invades half of the story. At Balzac, the “painting” is the object of a “double diversion”, both a metaphorical and a psychological one: there is a whole semantic field, concerning the body and its accessories, object and subject of the descriptive discourse. The descriptions concerned with the setting, the physical appearance, or the clothes ensure the character’s psychological coherence and represent auxiliary instruments in his/her characterisation.

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