La satire en vers au xixe siècle

Abstract

Generally, nineteenth century literary history has tended to ignore satire in verse. It seems to be assumed that the genre disappeared with the last of post-revolutionary satirical verses. And yet, it actually carries on throughout the century even if its very aims are out of step with the rest of poetical practices of the time. This article is based on an exhaustive inventory of all the publications with the word “satire” in their title or sub-title as listed in the catalogue of the Bibliotheque nationale de France. This corpus made up of 430 texts highlights the diverse motivations of the authors of satirical verses. During the period examined, this genre plays a discreet yet constant role in literary disputes, and allows many - mostly second-rate - authors to express themselves on moral, social and circumstantial subjects.