Sur la base d’un examen combiné d’ouvrages médicaux, scientifiques, littéraires et critiques, ce travail développe une généalogie transnationale de la notion de Nervenkunst (« art des nerfs »). À partir d’une reconstitution des origines françaises des discours sédimentés dans cette catégorie (ainsi que de leurs sources prérévolutionnaires et antiques), on démontre que l’idée d’un lien génétique entre l’écriture et le système nerveux, dont on a fait jusqu’ici une particularité de la littérature autrichienne des années 1890, peut-être une préfiguration de la psychanalyse, constitue, en réalité, l’aboutissement d’un système d’échanges et de transformations échelonnés sur plusieurs siècles, et dont les trajectoires convergent à l’époque du naturalisme. La première partie est consacrée à l’invention des « nerfs modernes », soit à une histoire culturelle des imaginaires du système nerveux avant et après 1789. La deuxième partie décrit la formation d’une idée de l’écrivain des nerfs à l’époque du Second Empire et de la Troisième République naissante (à partir notamment de l’œuvre des frères Goncourt). La troisième partie s’interroge sur la germanisation de ces contenus : comment tout cela est passé dans les pays de langue allemande entre 1870 et 1890, à un moment où les rapports avec la France étaient problématiques ? La réponse passe par un système de transferts et de regards croisés qui implique l’Autriche et la Scandinavie. / Based on a cross-examination of medical, scientific, literary, and critical materials, this work attempts a transnational genealogy of the concept of Nervenkunst (“art of the nerves”). Through a historical reconstruction of the French origins of the discourses that coalesce in that category (and a survey of their prerevolutionary and ancient sources), our research proves that a genetic connection between the writer’s craft and the nervous system is neither a peculiarity of Austrian literature in the 1890s nor a premonition of psychoanalysis, but the product of a system of exchanges and transformations that span several centuries, to converge in the years of early Naturalism. The first part chronicles the invention of “modern nerves”; in other words, it offers a cultural history of the neurological imagination before and after 1789. The second part describes the genesis of an idea of the nervous author during the Second Empire and the early Third Republic (focusing on the work of the Goncourt brothers and their entourage). The third part deals with the germanization of these originally French contents: how did these notions take root in the German-speaking world at a time (1870-1890) when Berlin’s relations with Paris were problematic at best? The answer lies in a system of cultural mediations and mutual perceptions that involves, among other things, Austria and Scandinavia.

This thesis will introduce the Viennese Modernism from the background of social and aesthetic changes at the turn of the 20th century. First will be outlined the social situation around 1900 and a position of bourgeois class in this society, because this class is where the culture of Viennese Modernism came from. From this social status as well as numerous scandals of modern art in this conservative society will be explained the organization of the cultural life of the young generation of artists. Furthermore there will also be introduced the Modernism in painting, architecture and music by their major artists. Similarly, in literature will be presented Hermann Bahr as an organizer of the literary group Young Vienna and his biggest opponent Karl Kraus, the satirist of his time. Thematically, the work of the authors of Young Vienna is divided into three areas, namely into the image of the society, which is mainly reflected in the work of Arthur Schnitzler and Peter Altenberg, aestheticism, which is also the subject of the most important works by Leopold Andrian, Richard Beer-Hofmann and the early dramas of Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The last theme is Chandos-Brief, written by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which is a document of the language crisis in this time.