Cette thèse a pour ambition de montrer que la représentation du seizième siècle constitue un élément définitoire du théâtre romantique. Le rapport des dramaturges à leurs sources éclaire le goût du seizième siècle qu’ont eu les romantiques et témoigne de la constitution d’un patrimoine dramatique et de la défense d’une poétique qui se veut en rupture avec la tradition théâtrale classique (première partie). Les territoires privilégiés du seizième siècle romantique sont en particulier la France de François Ier, l’Espagne (et l’Empire) de Charles Quint puis de Philippe II, la France des guerres de Religion, l’Angleterre et l’Italie (seconde partie). / This thesis aims at demonstrating that the representation of the sitxteenth century is a criterion which defines Romantic theatre. First, it underscores the relationship between playwhrights and their sources, which enlightens the Romantic taste of the sixteenth century and shows the establishment of a dramatic heritage and of the safeguard of a poetic that wants to break away from the classic theatrical tradition. Then, it focuses on Romantic-sixteenth- century favourite settings : France during the time of Francis the First, Spain (and Empire) of Charles the Fifth and then of Philip the Second, France during the period of the Religious Wars, and finally England and Italy.

Les années 1860-1880 forment une charnière dans l’histoire de la démocratie britannique, car cette période fut celle de la seconde loi de Réforme, qui étendit le droit de vote à de plus larges sections des classes ouvrières. Ce changement politique fut le fruit de nombreuses manifestations nationales dont les syndicats furent les figures de proue. L’engagement en faveur de l’Union au cours de la guerre de Sécession, et en faveur de l’unité nationale italienne et polonaise, fut le vecteur de l’entrée en politique des classes ouvrières. La construction de la citoyenneté ouvrière est étudiée ici au travers des articles du Bee-Hive, journal ouvrier radical et libéral qui fut créé en 1861 pour réclamer en priorité le droit de vote. / The 1860s-1870s form a turning point in the history of British democracy, because these were the years when the second Reform Act was passed, which extended the right to vote to larger sections of the working classes. Such political change was the result of numerous national demonstrations organised by the Trades’ Unions. By showing their strong commitment to the Union during the American Civil War, and to Italian and Polish national unity, the working classes signalled their determination to enter the field of politics. This doctoral thesis studies the construction of working class citizenship through the pages of the Bee-Hive, a radical and liberal working class paper primarily created in 1861 to claim for suffrage.

Si l'on sait depuis longtemps que tous les hommes de lettres du XIXe siècle partageaient une culture largement similaire, transmise et fortifiée par l'enseignement secondaire, rares sont, jusqu'à présent, les études qui ont cherché à rendre compte avec précision de la nature de cette culture classique. Notre étude avait pour objectif de combler autant que possible cette lacune. Nous avons essayé de reconstituer la vie scolaire de Baudelaire tout en tenant compte des enjeux historiques de l’époque. Tenter de décrire la situation historique de l’enseignement secondaire au XIXe siècle, nécessitait de prendre en compte les nombreux conflits d'ordre politique et idéologique qui influencent le contenu de l'enseignement. Nous avons donc parcouru l’histoire de l’enseignement secondaire, de Napoléon à Jules Ferry, afin de fournir une synthèse des caractéristiques de l'enseignement reçu par Baudelaire. En croisant les différentes sources que sont les programmes officiels, les rapports des inspecteurs généraux, les articles de journaux et les témoignages personnels, nous avons également analysé la pratique réelle des études classiques dans les différentes classes suivies par Baudelaire. Cette thèse est donc le fruit d'un travail interdisciplinaire qui vise non seulement à élucider une partie importante de la culture classique de Baudelaire mais aussi à mettre en lumière la genèse de certaines valeurs littéraires nouvelles au XIXe siècle. / Writers of the 19th century and, more generally, people schooled in the humanities, all shared a common literary culture acquired through their schooling in secondary schools. But the analysis of the contents of secondary education, and of the link between such schooling and literary production remains largely a field of study left untouched. Our objective was to fill this gap. We thus tried to reconstitute Baudelaire's schooling by emphasizing the main historical developments of the time in order to fully understand what was at stakes in the academic world. To give a truthful account of 19th century secondary education, one needs also to take into account the numerous political and ideological conflicts whose influence on the educational system was pervasive throughout the period. We therefore explored the history of 19th century France's educational system, from Napoleon to Jules Ferry, to provide a detailed overview of the main characteristics of such a system. By crossing sources like official programs, general inspectors' reports, articles in the press and personal accounts from prominent writers of the time, we also endeavored to study how Baudelaire was taught at the time. Our work relies heavily on interdisciplinary approaches and aims not only at clarifying an important part of the classical education received by Baudelaire but also at throwing light on the emergence of new literary values in the 19th century.

Le Second Empire coïncide avec un moment important de transformation et de mélange des catégories picturales au Salon. La peinture d’histoire se raréfie face à la scène de genre. Entre décadence de l’école française et gloire de la création contemporaine les avis sont alors partagés. Liée au courant réaliste, au goût pour l’anecdote et le pittoresque, la scène de genre se veut une évocation de la vie quotidienne. Ces toiles traditionnellement tenue pour mineure se voient anoblie par les achats de l’Etat en 1848, puis par ceux du couple impérial qui témoignent de l’engouement du public pour ces scènes drôles, émouvantes, parfois édifiantes. Influencé par les sciences sociales, les réformes politiques et la littérature, le peintre de genre propose un nouveau regard sur la vie quotidienne. Pour de nombreux critiques, la scène de genre, reflet des idéaux de leur temps, apparaît comme l’art par excellence du Second Empire, seule capable de transmettre à la postérité l’image de leur époque. En se libérant du carcan de l’histoire et de la religion, la peinture de genre permet aux artistes d’aborder plus librement la technique picturale, voir de la révolutionner comme les peintres impressionnistes qui multiplient les scènes contemporaines. Reflet des goûts d’une époque, la scène de genre du Second Empire témoigne également de la commercialisation de l’art qui connaît un essor sans précédent. Les liens qui existent entre la peinture de genre et le régime sous lequel elle connaît son plus grand succès, explique sans doute la réaction qui suit le conflit de 1870 et qui redonne à la France une grande peinture d’histoire, abandonnant les sujets « faciles » qui dominaient sous le régime précédent. Cette thèse tente ainsi de réhabiliter des peintres et des œuvres tombés dans l’oubli, mais qui apparaissent aujourd’hui importants afin comprendre le goût d’une époque, celui du Second Empire. / The Second Empire coincides with a time of important changes and jumble of pictorial categories at the Salon. History painting becomes scarce in comparison with genre painting. Public opinion is then torn between the decadence of the French school and the glory of contemporary creation. Linked to Reaslism, anecdote and colourful rendering, genre painting is willing to give an evocation of everyday life. These paintings, though generally considered as minor creations, are ennobled by State purchases in 1848, and by those of the Imperial couple after that, thus illustrating the public’s keen interest for funny, moving, sometimes enlightening scenes. Influenced by social sciences, political reforms and literature, the genre painter offers a new vision of every day life. For many critics, genre scenes are a reflection of their ideals, and appear to be the archetypal art of the Second Empire, the only one which will enable their time to go down in history with the correct rendering. By freeing the artists from stranglehold of history and religion, genre painting enables them to consider the pictorial technique more freely and even to revolutionize it, like the impressionists who multiplied contemporary scenes. A reflection of the tastes of an era, the genre scene of the Second Empire illustrates also the unprecedented rise in the marketing of art. The bonds that exist between genre painting and the regime under which it knows its greatest success probably explain the reaction which followed the 1870 war which gives back to France its great History painting, abandoning the “easy” subjects which ruled under the previous regime. This thesis attempts to rehabilitate painters and pieces fallen into oblivion but nowadays appearing to be important for the understanding of a time’s taste, that of the Second Empire.

Food historians have revealed that what constituted a working-class British woman's diet in the nineteenth century was quite different in calorific and nutritional content from what her family consumed. This work explores the nineteenth-century maternal diet and the effect this nutritional inequality had on the health of women and their infants. Divided into three sections, this dissertation deals with different aspects of nineteenth-century maternal nutrition. Section one explores the nineteenth-century medical understanding of diet, as well as the influences of class and traditional beliefs on eating habits, and how these factors determined the diet prescribed to mothers during pregnancy. Section two investigates the factors that perpetuated the unequal distribution and consumption of food within households. Factors explored include regional variations in working-class diet; gender associations with foods; economic changes in material wealth and expectations, and the pressures of respectability on female food denial. This section concludes that food refusal and unequal distribution were reinforced throughout the long nineteenth century because these behaviours appeared to have value, real or imagined, as long-term economic strategies. Food refusal maintained respectability, and helped women secure an economic support network. Mothers' self-denial seems to have secured the economic loyalties of children, making her the recipient of their income. The final section addresses how deprivation and dietary changes affected infant and maternal health, specifically examining how insufficient vitamin D and rickets influenced birth outcomes, and how the switch from a rural diet to an urban diet contributed to a rise in neural tube disorders in Wales. The analysis of childbirth data revealed a significant correlation between rickets and childbirth complications. The findings of this section also suggest that the dietary changes that followed migration and the change from an agricultural lifestyle to a market-integrated, industrial lifestyle for a majority of the Welsh population reduced women's intake of folic acid leaving their children susceptible to neural tube disorders.

Honoré de Balzac est aujourd’hui connu pour être le père du roman moderne et l’écrivain de La Comédie humaine. Mais nous oublions souvent qu’entre 1830 et 1832, au début de sa carrière, l’auteur a écrit, comme plusieurs écrivains de son temps, des contes. De multiples facteurs peuvent expliquer cet intérêt : les Contes fantastiques d’Hoffmann sont traduits de l’allemand en français et leur succès est immédiat. De plus, les nouveaux modes de publication littéraire, dans les revues et les journaux, favorisent la prolifération du genre. Un corpus retiendra notre attention : Les Cent Contes drolatiques, un projet, impopulaire en son temps, avec lequel Balzac souhaite « restaurer l’école du rire » en France. Au milieu du dix-neuvième siècle, l’auteur recrée des contes comme ceux que Rabelais, Verville et la reine de Navarre écrivaient en leur temps, trois ou quatre siècles auparavant. Pour ce faire, Balzac invente un langage qui simule le vieux français et crée des personnages grotesques. Qu’est-ce, dans l’écriture balzacienne, que l’esthétique du rire, et comment l’auteur exprime-t-il ce concept dans ses Cent Contes drolatiques? Pour répondre à ces questions, nous étudierons les manifestations du grotesque dans l’ensemble de l’œuvre de l’auteur. Aussi, selon Mikhaïl Bakhtine, dans L’Œuvre de François Rabelais et la culture populaire au Moyen Âge et sous la Renaissance , le grotesque, uni au rire, est relié au corps : « Le trait marquant du réalisme grotesque est le rabaissement, c’est-à-dire le transfert de tout ce qui est élevé, spirituel, idéal et abstrait sur le plan matériel et corporel. » Par conséquent, ce sont les représentations du corps que nous examinerons dans ce travail. Finalement, l’étude du corps grotesque dans Les Cent Contes drolatiques montrera une autre facette de l’écriture balzacienne, souvent ignorée par les chercheurs : l’importance du rire et la vision du monde que celui-ci communique à travers la littérature. / Honoré de Balzac is mostly acknowledged, today, as the father of the novel and as the writer of La Comédie humaine. But we often forget that between 1830 and 1832, at the beginning of his career, the author wrote, mainly and like many writers of his time, short stories. Multiple factors can explain that interest, for example, Hoffman’s Contes fantastiques had been translated from German to French and their success was immediate. Moreover, the new mediums of literary publication, in magazines and newspapers, favoured the proliferation of the genre. One corpus will keep our attention through these pages: Les Cent Contes drolatiques, a project, unpopular in his time, with which Balzac aimed to « restaurer l’école du rire » in France. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the author recreated short stories like the ones that Rabelais, Verville and the reine de Navarre have written in their time, three or four centuries before. To do so, Balzac invented a language that simulated the old French and created grotesque characters. What is, in Honoré de Balzac’s work, the aesthetic of laugh, and how does the author express that concept in his Cent Contes drolatiques? To answer these questions, we will study the manifestations of the grotesque in the entire production of the writer. Also, according to Mikhaïl Bakhtine, in L’Œuvre de François Rabelais et la culture populaire au Moyen Âge et sous la Renaissance , the grotesque, linked to laugh, is related to the body : « Le trait marquant du réalisme grotesque est le rabaissement, c’est-à-dire le transfert de tout ce qui est élevé, spirituel, idéal et abstrait sur le plan matériel et corporel. » Consequently, it is the representations of the body that, in a further reflection, we will examine. Finally, the study of the grotesque body in Les Cent Contes drolatiques will show another facet of Balzac’s writing, often ignored by researchers : the importance of laughter and the vision of the world that it communicates through literature.

This study is concerned with the examination of choral symphonies by major nineteenth-century composers. Its purpose is to delineate the common characteristics which these works have. Emphasis is given to the investigation of the choral elements in the symphonies. Detailed musicological studies of nineteenth-century music are minimal; there has. been a particular lack of interest in nineteenth-century works for chorus. Therefore, the principal sources of data for this study were the full scores of the following nine symphonies: Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, Berlioz' Romeo and Juliet and the Funeral and Triumphal Symphony, Mendelssohn's Lobgesang, Liszt's Faust Symphony and Dante Syrmphony, and Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 2., 3, and 8. Other important sources included major biographies of the composers of the symphonies listed. chapter is devoted to each of these composers, subdivided as follows: a general survey of the composer's other works for chorus and/or orchestra; the historical facts connected with the composition and first performance of the individual symphonies; analysis; and conclusions.

The life of Elisha P. Hurlbut (1807-1889) has been mostly forgotten since his death. This examination of his personal journal, which he wrote from 1858 to 1887, brings back to the forefront an influential figure that lived most of his life in and around Albany, New York. Prior to beginning the journal, Hurlbut was a lawyer and then a Supreme Court justice in New York. Seven years after retiring from public life in 1851, he commenced work on the journal that provided a detailed social and political commentary on New York, the United States, and the world as a whole. While the journal offers detailed insight into many specific subjects, this thesis focuses on Hurlbut’s views and expertise in civil rights, religion, and phrenology. This body of work will demonstrate how he shaped arguments for equality for all people, despised the influence of organized religion, and was a leader in phrenological studies.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) lived at the perfect time to write about several of the most dramatic technological developments ever recorded in history. Up until the nineteenth century, professional scientists were almost the exclusive agents for writing about science. However, during this period, non-professional writers also emerged as important conveyors of popular science news to the public. Though Poe was a lay writer, his popular writing conveyed several of the most important new discoveries of the Industrial Age. He also projected his views about how nineteenth-century technologies might impact civilizations of the future. Poe’s writing offers a key example of a widespread movement of thinkers who attempted to mediate the tensions and debates that were taking place in his lifetime between those who perceived and described the world from either the “Mechanical” or the “Romantic” approach. This study explores the ways that Poe wrote about science in poetry, non-fiction, and fiction. I argue that a review of his earlier science writing helps to unlock several of the enigmatic writings of his culminationg work, Eureka:A Prose Poem. The final chapter of this thesis concludes with an in-depth discussion of Eureka. In Eureka, Poe proposes that man’s literary works are imperfect. However, he contends that the Creator has written and executed a perfect “Plot of the Universe.” Poe attempts to unravel several of its deepest mysteries in a multi-genre work of poetry, history, science, and metaphysics. I argue that modern scholars of literature and science history can gain a clearer view of the ways that the nineteenth-century public received and understood information about science by exploring Poe’s science writing than has been provided in previous historical or literary scholarship.

À la suite d’une formation artistique à l’École des beaux-arts dans l’atelier de Bosio puis à l’Académie de France à Rome, le sculpteur Francisque Duret (1804-1865) se distingue particulièrement au Salon de 1833 avec un Jeune Pêcheur dansant la Tarentelle, fondu en bronze à la cire perdue par Honoré Gonon, prouesse technique pour l’époque. S’il exploite autant que possible cette veine pittoresque, notamment à travers la statuette d’édition, Duret, devenu membre de l’Institut en 1843 et professeur à l’École des beaux-arts en 1852, accumule les commandes officielles. La concrétisation de ce cursus honorum, qui fait de la carrière de Duret un archétype dans le monde de l’art officiel du XIXe siècle, repose sur une stratégie de carrière lisible notamment dans sa production de portraits, révélatrice de ses réseaux. Elle se décline également à travers des choix formels toujours marqués par l’antique qui lui permettent tant de rassurer ses commanditaires que de rentabiliser ses œuvres. En effet, ces dernières sont sujettes à de multiples variations, à toutes les échelles et dans des matériaux variés. Cette thèse a également pour ambition de mettre en lumière les ressorts intimes de la création de Duret en s’appuyant sur une correspondance très peu exploitée dans les précédentes études ainsi que sur des albums de dessins et des esquisses en terre cuite inédits. L’ensemble de ces sources révèle comment Duret, qui avait d’abord voulu être comédien, s’est constamment nourri des arts de la scène dans sa pratique de sculpteur. L’art du ballet mais aussi la tragédie et l’opéra lui ont permis d’approfondir son travail sur le drapé, le corps en mouvement et la composition du geste. / Following an artistic training at the School of Fine Arts in Bosio's workshop then at the Academy of France in Rome, the sculptor Francisque Duret (1804-1865) distinguishes itself particularly in the Show of 1833 with "Jeune Pêcheur dansant la Tarentelle" (Young fisherman dancing the Tarantella) a molten bronze made with lost wax method by Honoré Gonon, technical exploit for that period. If he exploits as far as possible this picturesque vein, in particular through the statuette of edition, Duret, who became in 1843 a member of the Institute and a professor of the School of Fine Arts in 1852, accumulates official orders. The realization of this Honorum Cursus which makes Duret's career an archetype in the world of the XIXth Century official Arts is based on a career strategy readable particularly in his production of portraits revealing his networks. His career also comes through formal choices always marked by the Classic Art (Antique) which gives him to reassure his sponsors and to make profitable works. Indeed the latter are subject to multiple variations at all level and in varied materials. This thesis has also for ambition to bring to light the intimate skills of Duret's creation by leaning on a correspondence little exploited in previous studies as well as on unpublished workbook of drawings and sketches in terracotta. All of these sources reveal how Duret, who wanted to be a stage actor, nourished constantly on performing arts for his sculptor's art. The Ballet, Tragedy and Opera arts allowed him to deepen his work on drape, body in movement and gesture composition.