Nerval et l’amour fou dans la poésie persane

Abstract

This article studies the mad love of the Persian poetry lovers, Layla and Qays, by pointing out the mystical dimension of this love which leads to madness and which transforms Qays into Majnûn, a name that means “possessed by the djinns”, namely the genies evoked by Nerval. The mystical love of the Sufi tradition, the Dantean angelic woman, the Shakespearean lovers of the Western literary tradition, Romeo and Juliet, all these topoi are present in the work of Nerval, who builds on his idea of love in the shape of literary rewriting linking the Eastern and Western Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the nineteenth century. Thus, Nerval’s work becomes a bridge between these epochs which develop a conception of love where the lovers embody mad love.