Abstract
Véronique Costa : Figures of night in Crébillon, or the fascination of chiaroscuro. This article is an attempt to understand the meaning of Crébillon' s fascination with night, which occupies an important place in his work. Darkness of course plays a decisive role in the constitution of those 'moments' which are at the centre of his sentimental doctrine, but his interest in night-time seems to go beyond libertine convention. Night is a fevered regulator obsessed by love's torments or enchanted by fairies with the power to enter one's imagination, and it seems to enhance the infinite refractions of literature ; it is the secret nexus of the romantic. It leads to the confusion of ideas and feelings and encourages psychological experiment and verification, thus emphasizing the ambiguity of affections and the painful conflict between nature and morality. Crebillon's true night symbolizes a confused and obscure relationship to truth.
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