L’objet de cette thèse est de montrer comment, en prenant invariablement appui sur la médiation des choses, Willa Cather confère à ses représentations d’espaces, à ses portraits de personnages et à la substance de son discours une densité et un relief qui rapprochent son écriture de l’art de la sculpture. Explorant pleinement le lien entre fictum et fingere, et forgeant des affinités nouvelles entre les mots et les choses, Cather inaugure une poétique des « trois dimensions ». Au sein de ses premiers romans et de ses nouvelles, Cather envisage les choses naturellement présentes au monde et celles que créent les personnages comme des intermédiaires concrets, permettant d’articuler un contact fructueux, mais respectueux, entre les êtres et l’espace et entre le discours et le monde sensible. Des vestiges Anasazi aux objets confectionnés par les pionniers et les artistes catheriens, dans l’Amérique du tournant du siècle, les choses constituent la base mais aussi l’horizon d’une approche véritablement poétique du concret. Au contact des outils et sous l’influence des mots, les terres de la Frontière, les paysages rocheux du sud-ouest et les grandes villes d’Amérique acquièrent une précision et une épaisseur sculpturales. En retour, les choses tangibles ou éthérées, ponctuant la trame du visible, influencent considérablement la forme et la teneur de la prose catherienne. Ecrivant en sculpteur, en orfèvre et en alchimiste, Cather élabore de surprenantes compositions langagières, qui non seulement renouvellent « les séductions qui nous viennent des choses » (Bachelard), mais qui confèrent aussi aux mots la densité et l’éclat de choses finement sculptées. / The aim of the thesis is to show how Cather constantly resorts to the mediating power of things in order to endow the representations of space, the portraits of her characters and the substance of her discourse with a sculptural density and relief. Exploring the link between fictum and fingere and inventing new forms of kinship between words and things, Cather creates an essential homology between her writing and the art of sculpture. According to her own words: “When a writer has a strong or revelatory experience”, he “gets a depth of picture and writes, as it were, in three dimensions instead of two”. Indeed, in Cather’s early novels and short-stories, natural and artificial things act as concrete intermediaries which pave the way for a fruitful yet respectful contact between her characters and space and between her discourse and the tangible world. From the Cliff-Dwellers’ relics to the artefacts crafted by the pioneers and artists in turn-of-the-century America, material things give rise to a genuinely poetic encounter with the real. Men’s tools and Cather’s words join to bring sculptural precision and depth to the Frontier territories, the canyons and mesas, as well as the outlines of cityscapes. At the same time, the tangible or ethereal things delineating the contours of the concrete world also shape Cather’s writing. Genuinely inspired by the sculptor’s, the goldsmith’s and the alchemist’s skills, Cather’s crafted prose not only renews “the seductive power of things” (Bachelard) or “the capacity for wonder” (Tanner), but also turns words into finely sculpted things.

Occidentalism in Russian Travel Literature in the 18th Century: Example of Nikolaj Mihailovič Karamzin Summary The purpose of this research is to explore how the national and cultural identity of Russia was constructed in the eighteenth century through the vehicle of travel writing. At the heart of this research is a close analysis of the travels of the Russian author Nikolaj Karamzin to the Western Europe. Karamzin's Letters of a Russian Traveller is a travelogue in the form of memoir in epistolary arrangement based on his travels through the states of Germany, Switzerland, France and England in 1789-1790. The era and the author chosen are justified by the graveness that the eighteenth century has for the history of the Russian literature. An era of major transformations in all social and cultural aspects of the till-then known Russian lifestyle set the ground for a move towards modernity. By travelling to the Western Europe and displaying the values and rich greatness of some aspects of the cultural, political and social lives, Karamzin proposes a set of alternative national ideals. These ideals would assist the country and the nation to get closer to the standards of the Western traditions and subsequently closer to 'paradise' and the 'perfect' life. As a contextual backup for the analysis of Karamzin's...