Nombreux sont les études consacrées ces dernières années au sujet de la réfutation. La plupart des ces études visent à remettre en lumière la réfutation dans sa structure logico-sémantique. Cette thèse tente par ailleurs à souligner que la réfutation est un art à part entier, au même titre que l’art d’argumenter, étant fondé sur la résistance aux paroles des autres interlocuteurs dans le dialogue théâtral où s’enchaînent les dimensions logique, dialogique, sémantique, rhétorique et pragmatique. L’analyse du texte théâtral nous a permis d’établir que la réfutation, malgré l’évolution sémantique du terme, est associée à la violation de la doxa sociale et son usage à travers les topoï, les figures et preuves du discours dérivé. Elle est également associée à la négation et appuyée par des connecteurs marquant l’opposition entre les points de vue du partenaire du dialogue. Cette étude aimerait donc à contribuer au débat actuel en proposant une piste de recherche dont nous avons la présomption de croire qu’elle est des plus fécondes. / Of the numerous studies devoted in recent years to the study of refutation, most have aimed to shed light on refutation in its logical-semantic structure. This thesis aims to show that refutation is a full-fledged art based, like the art of argumentation, on resistance to the words of other interlocutors in theatrical dialogue, in which the logical, dialogical, semantic, rhetorical and pragmatic dimensions combine. The analysis of theatre texts has allowed us to establish that refutation, in spite of the semantic evolution of the term, is associated with the violation of social doxa and its use via topoï, figures and proofs of derived discourse. It is also associated with negation and is supported by connectors that mark opposition among the points of view of the partners in dialogue. This study seeks to contribute to the current debate by proposing a research path that appears to have borne fruit.

This dissertation studies certain similarities between some early Bildungsroman of D. H. Lawrence and André Gide. In Lawrence's Sons and Lovers and The Rainbow, and Gide's L'lmmoraliste and La Porte étroite, the authors explore the destructive effects of cultural "Icons", narrowly codified gender roles, upon sensitive young European women at the turn of the century. Through an intricate subtext of allusive imagery, postures, language, and "mythical" patterns, Lawrence and Gide imply that a patristic Christianity had somehow enlisted certain strains of Romance to fashion a pervasive cultural code that encouraged young women to be virginal, passive, and receptive to suffering. The young female protagonists look to their roles as Madonna, Maiden, and Martyr as an escape from a provincial world that offers little to their "over brimming" souls. Ironically, it is their Knight-Christs, the "mentors" who propose to teach them about the higher world, who imprison them further. Pretending to elevate them to the status of Spiritual Muse to inspire the male quest for selfhood, the lovers demand of their Madonna-Maidens a passivity whereby suffering is their only "heroic" act. Male-sculpted models of femininity, then, make it impossible for young women to pursue their own quests for the authentic "self". The final tragedy for the young women comes when their opposite numbers awaken from Romance's pregenital spring to what Lawrence calls "blood-consciousness". The Maidens' Knight-Christs now find restrictive their spiritual lovers and desire instead the initiation into the "flesh" preached by a new cultural code, that of Nietzsche et al. Lawrence's and Gide's young female characters, then, serve as exemplars of an entire generation of young women destroyed in this teleological shift to a new cultural ethos, one in which, suddenly, their "virtues" are judged vices, all they had been presented to them as "natural" is deemed "unnatural".