Le roman français du début du XIXème siècle: de la maturation du genre à la naissance de la sensibilité romantique
The French novel from the beginning of the 19th century: from the maturation of the genre to the birth of the romantic sensibility

Summary/Abstract: Even if intimate and individualistic writing was acclaimed by Rousseau towards the end of the previous century, it was Madame de Staël, convinced of the relevance of this new sensibility with her novel Corinne or Italy, who inaugurated the romantic novel under the Empire. Benjamin Constant and Chateaubriand also tried their hand at romantic romance with Adolphe and Atala, respectively, without achieving the same success, which has led us to focus on the analysis of the Staëlian novel. In this article, the concomitant development of the novel and romantic sensibility at the very beginning of the XIXth century is retraced by linking Staël’s eponymous heroine to other heroines who evolved in her dissenting and transgressive wake. This is how we were able to observe that the novelists of the years 1820-1830, such as Stendhal, definitely, following Madame de Staël, made the link between the pre-eminence of the novel in literature and the development of the romantic aesthetic. It even appears that the influence of the author of Corinne goes beyond the beginning of that century, since it is noticeable among novelists of the second half of the 19th century, such as Gustave Flaubert. This link will be structured through the intermediary of the romantic heroine who becomes the major figure of the novel: from Corinne to Emma Bovary.

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