Le merveilleux dans le Don Sylvio de Wieland

Abstract

Wieland’s novel begins with reading scenes in which the comic is mixed with the marvellous. The beginning of the novel suggests a fairy tale, even before what is read enters and defines the readers’ minds. The predominance of the fairy-tale-like within the adventures ensures a smooth transition between the real and the imaginary, which is also revealed in the hero’s dreams. What is the status of the marvellous as the trigger for these unsettling but also glorious metamorphoses? Wieland attributes it to a “blind instinct”, which he places in an anthropological light.