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Cette thèse a pour objet l’ensemble des manifestations festives que donnent à lire trois romans de Victor Hugo : Notre-Dame de Paris, Les Misérables et Quatrevingt-treize. Son hypothèse générale est que la fête, lorsqu’elle est envisagée comme rite collectif, prend en charge les différentes tensions qui, au XIXe siècle, escortent l’évolution des statuts du citoyen, du devenir historique et des rapports entre le peuple et le pouvoir. La récurrence de certains motifs tend à montrer que la thématisation et l’écriture de la fête chez Hugo sont soumises à deux lois. La première consiste en la cohabitation sociale du sublime et du grotesque. La deuxième repose sur le détournement des ressources scripturales, formelles, rhétoriques du carnavalesque vers un tableau sinistre et funèbre. L’étude sociocritique de ces différentes scènes met en lumière les relations que les romans hugoliens entretiennent avec l’imaginaire social de la Révolution française, de la Restauration et du Second Empire, tout particulièrement à l’égard des débats sur la misère, sur le sens du pouvoir et sur la notion de progrès. / This thesis focuses on the festive events in three novels by Victor Hugo : Notre-Dame de Paris, Les Misérables and Quatrevingt-treize. Its general hypothesis is that the festival, when considered as a collective rite, takes charge of the different tensions in the nineteenth century that escort the evolution of the status of the citizen, of the historical future and of the relationship between the people and the power. The recurrence of certain motifs tends to show that the thematization and the writing of the festival in Hugo’s work is subject to two laws. The first consists in the social cohabitation of the sublime and the grotesque. The second is based on the detour of the scriptural, formal and rhetorical resources of the carnival towards a sinister and funereal picture. The sociocritical study of these different scenes highlights the links that novels maintain with the social imaginary of the French Revolution, the Restoration and the Second Empire, particularly with regard to the debates on misery, the meaning of power and the notion of progress.

This thesis contends that the image of fire is a multivalent and theologically valuable image for application in British Christian communities. My research offers an original contribution by contextualising the image of fire for Christian practice in Britain, and combining critical observation of several contemporary fire rites with theological analysis. In addition, I conduct original case studies of three Scottish fire rituals: the Stonehaven Fireball Ceremony, the Beltane Fire Festival, and Up-Helly-Aa in Lerwick, Shetland. The potential contribution of fire imagery to Christian practice has been overlooked by modern theological scholarship, social anthropologists, and Christian practitioners. Since the multivalence of the image has not been fully recognised, fire imagery has often been reduced to a binary of ‘positive' and ‘negative' associations. Through my study of non-faith fire rituals and existing Christian fire practices, I explore the interplay between multivalence, multiplicity, and liminality in fire imagery. I demonstrate that deeper theological engagement with the image of fire can enhance participation, transformation, and reflection in transitional ritual experience. I argue that engaging with the multivalence of the image of fire could allow faith communities to move beyond dominant interpretive frameworks and apply the image within their own specific context. First, I orientate the discussion by examining the multivalence of biblical fire imagery and establishing the character of fire within the British social imagination. Second, I use critical observation of community fire practices in non-faith contexts to build a new contextual framework for the analysis of fire imagery. Finally, I apply my findings to a contextual analysis of existing Christian fire practices in Britain. Throughout, I argue that sensory and imaginative interaction with the image of fire provides a way to communicate and interact with theological ideas; experience personal and communal change; and mediate experience of the sacred.