Éros romantique et thanatographie aristocratique dans Spirite de Théophile Gautier

Abstract

Several of the most prominent literary figures of the French Romanticism were aristocrats, from Chateaubriand to Lamartine, including Vigny and Musset. A figurehead of romanticism, of which he wanted to be the historian, Théophile Gautier was certainly not an aristocrat himself. However, the narratives of this writer who makes the love affaires one of his privileged topic frequently features noble characters. Relatively late in the history of French Romanticism, Spirite relates the relationship between two aristocrats, one of whom, a ghost, comes into mediumistic contact with the man she loved during her lifetime. In this way, the author describes a love beyond the grave that goes through the supernaturalist uses of the scriptural gesture in vogue at that time in France. In doing so, this narrative, one of the last of its author, allows us to grasp some of the highly eroticized values associated with literature for Gautier.