L’esprit géographique dans les romans de Xavier-Laurent Petit : l’appel du dehors

Abstract

Travel literature for young people provides an opportunity to follow the construction of identity around a double didactic knot: the here and the elsewhere. Geographical space is a key element of the novel, and places are the foundation of the narrative. As part of a humanist heritage, the writer creates a journey and an experience of the living: space and species. Xavier-Laurent Petit's work naturally suggests to readers that they belong to the world. In this literary geography, the author weaves together the perceived, experienced and represented space. He highlights landscapes and a geographical gaze that is very reminiscent of Kenneth White's geopoetic approach. This approach anchors our thinking in a triple perspective: scientific, philosophical and poetic. What is this world we live in? This question seems to be entirely contained in this call from the outside and the experience of movement. At the frontier between literature and geography, and drawing on different types of knowledge about the living world around us, travel writing for young readers has the power to question the world. Through language, it gives a space, a landscape, and even sometimes a path to read.