Le présent travail concerne les huit romans du cycle Les habits noirs de Paul Féval : Les habits noirs, Cœur d’acier, La rue de Jérusalem, L’arme invisible, Maman Léo, L’avaleur de sabre, Les compagnons du trésor, La bande cadet. Si nous avons choisi d’étudier la série Les habits noirs de Paul Féval, c’est parce que nous sommes convaincue que ce cycle de romans sollicite la collaboration du lecteur. Nous n’avons pas la prétention d’affirmer que nous allons épuiser tout le potentiel interprétatif que recèlent ces romans mais nous pensons au contraire que beaucoup de choses restent à dire. Les quelques études menées dans ce travail ne sont qu’une contribution infime dans le vaste champ de la littérature et plus précisément dans la critique littéraire. Le XIXe siècle en France est incontestablement l’ère de l’essor de bien des innovations. Tous les paramètres de l’activité physique et intellectuelle vont connaître des bouleversements incommensurables. Des domaines technologiques, scientifiques en passant par ceux des humanités, aucun secteur ne peut se targuer de n’avoir pas subi quelques chamboulements l’ayant profondément modifié. Paul Féval est souvent considéré comme l’un des grands romanciers populaires du XIXe siècle : contes, nouvelles, livres d’histoire, romans autobiographiques, fantastiques, historiques, policiers, sociaux, pièces de théâtre ; journaliste, épistolier, conférencier. Notre travail sur Les habits noirs est consacré à tout ce qui se rapporte à la formation humaine et intellectuelle chez Paul Féval. Notre problématique est de savoir si Les habits noirs de Paul Féval renferme les caractéristiques principales qui déterminent le roman feuilleton au XIXe siècle. / Our Thesis is based on the eight novels from the Paul Féval’s cycle Les habits noirs (The black clothes): Les habits noirs, Cœur d’acier, La rue de Jérusalem, L’arme invisible, Maman Léo, L’avaleur de sabre, Les compagnons du trésor, La bande cadet. We decided to study the series Les habits noirs of Paul Féval because we are convinced that this cycle of novels requests the collaboration of the reader. We do not claim to exhaust all the interpretative potential which these novels conceal, but we think in contrast that many things remain to be said. The studies undertaken in our work are only one contribution in the field of literature, and more precisely in literary criticism. The 19th Century in France is obviously the era of the rise of many innovations. All the fields of technological and intellectual activity will know important changes. Technological and scientific fields, as well as Humanities, have known changes that deeply modified them. Paul Féval is often considered as one of the most popular novelists of the 19th Century: he wrote tales, short stories, books of history, autobiographical, fantastic, historical, social, epistolary, crime novels, plays; he was also journalist and lecturer. Our work is devoted to all that refers to the human and intellectual formation in Paul Féval’s Les habits noirs. Our issue is to know if Les habits noirs contains the main characteristics of the 19th Century serial novels.

This thesis will explore how writers of nineteenth-century Irish horror fiction, namely short stories and novels, used their works to express the social, cultural, and political events of the period. My thesis will employ a New Historicist approach to discuss the effects of colonialism on the writings, as well as archetypal criticism to analyse the mythic origins of the relevant metaphors. The structuralism of Tzvetan Todorov will be used to discuss the notion of the works' appeal as supernatural or possibly realistic works. The theory of Mikhail Bakhtin is used to discuss the writers' linguistic choices because such theory focuses on how language can lead to conflicts amongst social groups. The introduction is followed by Chapter One, "Ireland as England's Fantasy." This chapter discusses Ireland's literary stereotype as a fantasyland. The chapter also gives an overview of Ireland's history of occupation and then contrasts the bucolic, magical Ireland of fiction and the bleak social conditions of much of nineteenth-century Ireland. Chapter Two, "Mythic Origins", analyses the use of myth in nineteenth-century horror stories. The chapter discusses the merging of Christianity and Celtic myth; I then discuss the early Irish belief in evil spirits in myths that eventually inspired horror literature. Chapter Three, "Church versus Big House, Unionist versus Nationalist," analyses how the conflicts of Church/Irish Catholicism vs. Big House/Anglo-Irish landlordism, proBritish Unionist vs. pro-Irish Nationalist are manifested in the tales. In this chapter, I argue that many Anglo-Irish writers present stern anti-Catholic attitudes, while both Anglo-Irish and Catholic writers use the genre as political propaganda. Yet the authors tend to display Home Rule or anti-Home Rule attitudes rather than religious loyalties in their stories. The final chapter of the thesis, "A Heteroglossia of British and Irish Linguistic and Literary Forms," deals with the use of language and national literary styles in Irish literature of this period. I discuss Bakhtin's notion of heteroglossia and its applications to the Irish novel; such a discussion because nineteenth-century Ireland was linguistically Balkanised, with Irish Gaelic, Hibemo-English, and British English all in use. This chapter is followed by a conclusion. / English / M. Lit. et Phil. (English)

This thesis will explore how writers of nineteenth-century Irish horror fiction, namely short stories and novels, used their works to express the social, cultural, and political events of the period. My thesis will employ a New Historicist approach to discuss the effects of colonialism on the writings, as well as archetypal criticism to analyse the mythic origins of the relevant metaphors. The structuralism of Tzvetan Todorov will be used to discuss the notion of the works' appeal as supernatural or possibly realistic works. The theory of Mikhail Bakhtin is used to discuss the writers' linguistic choices because such theory focuses on how language can lead to conflicts amongst social groups. The introduction is followed by Chapter One, "Ireland as England's Fantasy." This chapter discusses Ireland's literary stereotype as a fantasyland. The chapter also gives an overview of Ireland's history of occupation and then contrasts the bucolic, magical Ireland of fiction and the bleak social conditions of much of nineteenth-century Ireland. Chapter Two, "Mythic Origins", analyses the use of myth in nineteenth-century horror stories. The chapter discusses the merging of Christianity and Celtic myth; I then discuss the early Irish belief in evil spirits in myths that eventually inspired horror literature. Chapter Three, "Church versus Big House, Unionist versus Nationalist," analyses how the conflicts of Church/Irish Catholicism vs. Big House/Anglo-Irish landlordism, proBritish Unionist vs. pro-Irish Nationalist are manifested in the tales. In this chapter, I argue that many Anglo-Irish writers present stern anti-Catholic attitudes, while both Anglo-Irish and Catholic writers use the genre as political propaganda. Yet the authors tend to display Home Rule or anti-Home Rule attitudes rather than religious loyalties in their stories. The final chapter of the thesis, "A Heteroglossia of British and Irish Linguistic and Literary Forms," deals with the use of language and national literary styles in Irish literature of this period. I discuss Bakhtin's notion of heteroglossia and its applications to the Irish novel; such a discussion because nineteenth-century Ireland was linguistically Balkanised, with Irish Gaelic, Hibemo-English, and British English all in use. This chapter is followed by a conclusion. / English / M. Lit. et Phil. (English)