The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the different ways in which naturalist fiction was parodied in France at the end of the nineteenth century. It demonstrates first of all the validity of approaching naturalist literature through the medium of parody by defining and explaining the interrelation between parody and naturalism. If parody, which inscribes texts within texts, seeks by its very nature to reveal the illusory status of literature and makes the reader aware of the literary medium, naturalist fiction obeys the opposite impulse: its mimetic pretences lead it to hide its literariness. The principal aim of the thesis is thus to determine whether and to what extent parody can undermine the mimetic strategies of naturalist literature; and whether parody led to a renewal of naturalist fiction as it has done with other kinds of fiction. The thesis is divided into three parts. Part 1 concentrates on the theory of parody and provides a survey of the different conceptions of parody through the centuries. Chapter 1 of Part 1 deals with definitions of parody as a relatively minor practice. Chapter 2 is devoted to parody as a key factor in the renewal of literary genres as well as being a constituent of modern and post-modern aesthetics. In Chapter 3, I outline a twofold approach to parody: I argue that some texts are parodic by nature and that other texts are potentially parodic. In the former case the text is intentionally parodic, whether the reader is capable of identifying parody or not. In the latter case the very intentionality of parody is put into question. For a comprehensive poetics of parody both modes must be taken into account. Part 2 examines the numerous parodies that arise in the context of the reception of naturalist literature. I have uncovered over a hundred of these multigeneric parodies, which have allowed me to establish an extensive bibliography of the parodies of naturalist literature. Even though some of these parodies can be thought of as slight from a literary point of view, they provide us with invaluable information on naturalism and its literary context. Besides their general sociological and documentary value, these parodies unveil completely unexplored aspects of the literary battle provoked by naturalist writings. In this way new light is shed on the process of reception of naturalist fiction. The parodic dimension that can be found in the works of the so-called second generation of naturalist writers - Paul Bonnetain, Leon Hennique, Henri Ceard and others - is discussed in Part 3 of the thesis. In their works naturalist themes and procedures often become mechanised and overcoded: the strategies used to explore the very limits of the naturalist genre range from the comic grotesque, to the 'shocking', to the absurd. I f in the parodies studied in Part 2 naturalism was parodied from outside, in this phase it is undermined from within by a ' fifty. Interestingly, such practices are also to be found in the works of major writers associated with the naturalist movement (Joris-Karl Huysmans and Octave Mirbeau). Thus I use parody or self-parody as an interpretative grid to cast a different light on certain naturalist writings. Even though parody does not really lead to the renewal of naturalist fiction, it sometimes gives rise to reflection on literariness and the writing process. Such a meta-fictional use of parody is fundamentally innovative and represents a modern trend already evident in the fiction of the last decades of nineteenth-century.

Depuis les quatre dernières décennies, des publications célèbres analysent l’histoire, l’art et l’architecture de la psychiatrie de la fin du dix-neuvième siècle afin de dénoncer les aspects négatifs de la science psychiatrique : voyeurisme sur la personne du fou, déshumanisation de l’asile, autoglorification du psychiatre, abus de pouvoir. C’est ce regard à sens unique que j’ai voulu déjouer dans cette thèse en consacrant ma recherche aux œuvres produites en amont de cette période. Leur analyse a permis de prendre conscience de l’autre versant de la science psychiatrique, celui qui est philanthropique, bienveillant et animé d’un réel espoir de guérison. Mon objectif a été de construire, par l’analyse de ce domaine iconographique inédit ou négligé, une nouvelle histoire de la naissance de la psychiatrie, celle de sa culture visuelle. Une histoire qui révèle ses idéaux du début du siècle et les écarts à ses propres aspirations par son besoin de légitimation et de professionnalisation. Ma thèse propose une enquête épistémologique de l’histoire de l’aliénisme français, par le biais du discours porté par les œuvres d’art commandées par ses fondateurs. Le premier chapitre est consacré aux premiers asiles conçus comme le prolongement du corps du psychiatre et ils sont analysés selon les valeurs de la nouvelle science. Je me suis appliquée à y démontrer que le concept même d’asile, agissant sur nos sensations et sur notre cognition, relève autant des théories architecturales des Lumières que des besoins spécifiques de l’aliénisme. Le deuxième chapitre identifie, pour la première fois, un ensemble de portraits de la première génération d’aliénistes et de leurs disciples. J’argumente que ce corpus voulait imposer l’image de l’aliéniste comme modèle de raison et établir sa profession. Pour ce faire, il s’éloigne des premières représentations des aliénistes, paternalistes, et philanthropiques. Le troisième chapitre analyse les représentations des aliénés produites pour les traités fondateurs de la psychiatrie publiés en France. Le vecteur de mon analyse et le grand défi pour l’art et la science viennent de l’éthique des premiers psychiatres : comment représenter la maladie mentale sans réduire le malade à un être essentiellement autre ? Une première phase de production accorde à l’aliéné autonomie et subjectivité. Mais la nécessité d’objectiver le malade pour répondre aux besoins scientifiques de l’aliénisme a, à nouveau, relégué l’aliéné à l’altérité. Le sujet du quatrième et dernier chapitre est le cycle décoratif de la chapelle de l’hospice de Charenton (1844-1846), principal asile parisien de l’époque. J’y interroge comment l’art religieux a pu avoir un rôle face à la psychiatrie, en empruntant à l’iconographie religieuse sa force et sa puissance pour manifester l’autorité de l’aliéniste jusque dans la chapelle de l’asile. Le dix-neuvième siècle a été porteur d’espoirs en la reconnaissance de la liberté des êtres et de l’égalité des droits entre les personnes. Ces espoirs ont pourtant été déçus et les œuvres de l’aliénisme montrent un nouvel aspect de ces promesses non tenues envers les groupes fragilisés de la société, promesses de reconnaissance de leur subjectivité, de leur autonomie et de leur dignité. / Over the last four decades, famous publications have analyzed the history, art, and architecture of late nineteenth-century psychiatry to denounce the negative aspects of this science: the voyeurism directed toward the person of the insane, the dehumanization of the asylum, the self-glorification of the psychiatrist, the abuse of power. It is this one-sided view that I seek to undermine in this dissertation by focusing my analysis on artworks produced at the birth of psychiatry in the early nineteenth century. It reveals another side of the psychiatric science, one that is philanthropic, humane and motivated by a real hope of cure. By examining unpublished or neglected iconographic material, I construct a new history of the birth of psychiatry – that of its visual culture – which reveals both its ideals and the distance from its own aspirations brought about by this new science’s need for legitimation and professionalization. My dissertation proposes an epistemological investigation of the history of French alienism by studying the rhetorical discourse of the artworks commissioned by its founders. The first chapter is dedicated to the earliest asylums. Designed as the continuation of the body of the psychiatrist, they are analyzed in relation to the values of the new science. I demonstrate that the concept of asylum, affecting our sensations and our cognition, both followed the Enlightenment theories of architecture and expressed the specific needs of psychiatry. The second chapter identifies, for the first time, a set of portraits of the first generation of psychiatrists and their pupils. I argue that this corpus sought to impose the image of the psychiatrist as a model of reason and to establish the profession. In the process, the image of the psychiatrist gradually lost its paternalist and humanist characteristics. The third chapter analyzes the illustrations of the insane produced for the founding treatises of psychiatry published in France. The vector of my analysis and the big challenge for art and for science come from the ethics of the first psychiatrists: how to represent mental illness without reducing the sick person to alterity? One of the first phases of production grants autonomy and subjectivity to the insane individual. But in order to objectify the patient to fulfill the scientific needs of psychiatry, the madman was once again relegated to otherness. The fourth and last chapter focuses on the ornamental cycle in the chapel of the Hospice de Charenton (1844-1846), the main Parisian asylum at the time. It reveals how religious art played a role in psychiatry by borrowing from the force and power of religious iconography to mark the presence of the psychiatrist’s authority even in the asylum chapel. The nineteenth century generated hopes for the recognition of the freedom of individuals and of equality between people. While these hopes were ultimately disappointed, the artworks produced for alienism show the promises that had been made to the weaker groups of society, promises of recognition of their subjectivity, of their autonomy, and of their dignity.

Nel corso dell’Ottocento, in Francia, il principio di formazione, attraverso gli studi classici, delle élite destinate a ricoprire le più alte funzioni professionali assunse una connotazione sempre più anacronistica e il sistema scolastico fu al centro di una serie di accesi dibattiti e tentativi più o meno riusciti di riforma dei metodi di insegnamento e dei contenuti degli studi, che si acuirono soprattutto in seguito alla battaglia di Sedan. Il permanere di una cultura e di un sistema di istruzione immobile e legato alla tradizione umanistica si scontrò violentemente a fine secolo con la democratizzazione della società, il progresso scientifico e lo sviluppo economico e con la corsa alla modernizzazione della cultura. Questo elaborato si propone di ripercorrere i principali aspetti culturali, storici ed economici che scandirono la storia della pedagogia francese, analizzando il lungo ed altalenante percorso di cambiamento delle humanités classiques durante la costituzione dell’istituzione più conservatrice della Francia del XIX secolo: l’enseignement secondaire. / During the nineteenth century in France, the education through classical studies of the elite meant to play the highest professional roles became increasingly anachronistic and the school system was the main target of many debates and reforming processes. These attempts of changing teaching methods and subjects increased even further after the battle of Sedan. At the end of the century, the persistence of a stationary culture and of an educational system linked to the humanistic tradition clashed with the democratisation of the society, the scientific progress and the economic development and also with the rush to modernise this culture. The aim of this research is to trace the main cultural, historical and economic factors that distinguished the history of French education, while analysing the long and various changes of classical humanities during the establishment of French secondary school, which was the more conservative institution of the nineteenth century.