Laboratoires insulaires : Renaissances, régression et re-création dans The Island of Doctor Moreau de H. G. Wells et The Ebb-Tide de R. L. Stevenson

Abstract

This article aims to explore the way R. L. Stevenson and H. G. Wells use the insular space to go back to more timeless ways of writing and thus to revive insular romance in works such as The Ebb-Tide or The Island of Doctor Moreau. If by the turn of the 19th century, starting anew and being reborn on a desert island had become increasingly difficult, the island still offered the possibility of a form of literary re-birth or ‘renaissance’, by regressing to more ancient forms of story-telling while simultaneously innovating in terms of literary form and genre. This paper therefore aims to analyse the ambivalence of this insular ‘renaissance’, and the way it relies on pre-existing tropes and motifs while adapting to spatial and cultural changes in the insular context, in order to renew the adventure genre and offer an alternative to literary Realism at the turn of the 19th century. It moreover explores the motif of the island as laboratory, be it a scientific, a political or a literary one, and the various forms of revivals it leads to in the two authors’ works.