This thesis examines the novels of George Sand (1804-1876) and analyses representative examples from her entire œuvre. Its overall aim is to re-evaluate Sand’s standing as a writer of intellectual interest and importance by demonstrating that she is engaging with a cultural and intellectual phenomenon of particular relevance to the nineteenth century: the link between different ways of seeing and knowledge or understanding, which I term ‘insight’. The visual dimension of Sand’s novels has so far been overlooked or reduced to a rose-tinted view of the world, and my study is the first to examine vision in her work. I argue that Sand demonstrates a continuous commitment to ways of engaging with the world in visual terms, incorporating conceptual seeing, prophetic vision, as well as physical eyesight. Contesting the prevailing critical view of Sand’s œuvre as one which declines into blandness and irrelevance after the 1850s, this thesis uncovers a model of expansion in her writing, as she moves from her focus on the personal in her early novels, privileging internal vision, to wider social concerns in her middle period in which she aims to reconfigure reality, to her final period in which she advocates the physical observation of the natural world. Rejecting the perception of Sand as a writer of sentiment at the expense of thought, this study argues that her writing constitutes a continuous quest for understanding, both of the physical world and the more abstract, eternal ‘vérité’. I show that Sand transcends binary divisions between science and art, the detail and the whole, the material and the abstract, and that she ultimately promotes a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the world. This also enables me to reassess Sand’s poetics by arguing that her rejection of the mimetic model is founded on her conception of the world as multiple and constantly evolving.

Les langues françaises sont, aujourd’hui, sous le joug de l’universalité tout en étant menacées. Elles s’engagent vers de nouveaux questionnements qui correspondent aux évolutions du monde. En effet, elles permettent de valoriser le lien entre les origines et les mutations des idées au sein de la « francophonie » au fil des générations. Nul doute que la multiplication des influences et l’omniprésence des contacts avec un Autre, dans l’espace de la mondialisation, modifie leur rapport à leurs identités francophones. À partir de là, la complexité de l’identité francophone amène à s’interroger sur la corrélation du rapport entre les langues orales et écrites comprenant les littératures et d’autres expressions musicales ainsi que leur rapport réflexif avec les identités encore instables de leur public francophone. Dans le cadre plus précis de cette thèse, le public-lecteur est constitué par des jeunes francophones canadiens et marocains appartenant à une génération de "l'entredeux"qui a constitué le coeur de la recherche présentée. En outre, l’approche à travers une étude comparée pertinente, ouvre également vers la mise en avant des points de convergence et de divergence entre les participants. Notre recherche suit alors une démarche progressive qui est initiée par l’exploitation d’une étude empirique des références, puis d’une enquête quantitative qui a révélé les identités en transition. Enfin,des entretiens semi-dirigés qualitatifs ont permis l’approfondissement du point de vue du lecteur sur son rapport particulier avec le concept identitaire, les littératures et les langues sous des formes mouvantes permanentes qui sont un écho aux évolutions sociales réelles. / The French languages are now under the yoke of universality while being threatened. They commit to new questions that correspond to the changing world. Indeed, they help to enhance the link between the origins and the transformation of ideas within the "Francophonie" over generations. There is no doubt that the proliferation of influences and the ubiquity of contact with the Other, in the space of globalization, change their relationship with their Francophone identities. From there, the complexity of the Francophone identity raises questions about the correlation of the relationship between oral and written languages including literatures and other musical expressions and their reflexive relationship with the still unstable identities of their public francophone. In the specific context of this thesis, the public-reader is consisted of Canadian and Moroccan young Francophones belonging to a generation of "in-between" that was the heart of the research presented. In addition,the approach through a relevant comparative study also opens to the highlighted points of convergence and divergence between the participants. Our research then follows a gradual process which is initiated by the exploitation of an empirical study of references. Then a quantitative survey revealed the identities in transition. Finally, qualitative semi-structured interviews have helped deepen the perspective of the reader on its special relationship with the concept of identity, literatures and languages under permanent moving forms that are an echo of real social changes.