Aux sources de la poétique de Théophile Gautier: la préface d’“Albertus”

Abstract

Théophile Gautier is known to be the founder of the “art for art’s sake” literary theory which is mainly outlined, according to the critics, in the preface of the novel Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835). Actually the first statements on the autonomy of art and supremacy of beauty can be traced back to the preface of the collection of poems entitled Albertus (1832). First of all, this paper aims to analyse the above-mentioned text in order to both show the originality and independence of the poet early in his career, within a context dominated by Hugo’s poetics, and to highlight the elements of its new aesthetic feeling; secondly, to relate this aesthetic to the further developments of Gautier’s poetics, highly heterogeneous though sharing a specific attitude towards art and artistic creation, and in which the consolation that comes from art has a crucial role. This perspective, I will argue, may provide a more authentic interpretation of Gautier’s poetry, so to move past the preconceptions about his works.