Thèse--Sciences historiques et philologiques--Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes--Paris, 2003. / Bibliogr. p. 525-595.

Texte remanié de : Diss. : Freie Universität : Berlin, 1998. / Résumé en français. Bibliogr. p. 248-266.

Akademisk avhandling : Humanistika fakultetens : Åbo : 2004. / Bibliogr. p. 207-221. Index.

No description available.

In his literary work, Honore de Balzac sporadically denounces economic crimes, which, cleverly committed, may wind easily round the law. But it is mainly in his enigma novels that this denunciation becomes more forceful. From the narrators' perspective, fraud and assassination have enriched the Camps (Madame Firmiani) and Lanty (Sarrasine ) families, as well as the bankers---Taillefer (L'Auberge rouge) and Nucingen (La Maison Nucingen). Legal criminality, an eminently serious theme of Balzac's critical realism, is narrated by way of enigma games and their everlasting companion, mystification. / A better grasp of the plot's central role leads the reader to discover legal criminality, since the narrative structure restores order between fable (intricacy of the crime story) and discourse (invention of crime as an enigma). To relate circumstances leading to the solution of wealth enigmas, Balzac exploits enigma games as an essence of orality, thus giving his fiction the style of a conversational game. Furthermore, he uses a diversity of characters and narrative processes to create uncertainties, suggest clues, denounce inconsistencies. / The balzacian literary universe exploits the classical poetics of enigma, developing the enigma from a well-known fact: enrichment by criminal means is an open secret. The point of distinction between Balzac's enigmas and other novels is that they do not really aim at elucidating a mystifying crime, such as in Edgar Allan Poe's novels, but rather at revealing the subtle art of deception. Balzacian "intellectuals", criminals of a new kind, know how to evade the law and take advantage of its loopholes. The narrators, wishing to satisfy the readers' wish to know "the chemical process for oil burning in Aladdin's lamp", must not only specialize their narrative structure to achieve this goal, but also trick the readers into keeping interested in stories which must seem ever more captivating as they become more meaningless. / Set between Vidocq's loitering and Dupin's readings, between a spy's memory tracking and a detective's syllogistic intelligence, the dramaturgy of "Faits divers", in the world of Balzac, does not condone nor condemn any of these manifestations of enigma, as it is first and foremost a narrative adventure.

In this thesis, we are examining the structural poetics of the short story in The Comedie humaine. We first of all analyze three internal elements of the story: narration, description and dialogue. We then study the composition of the collections which form The Comedie humaine. / Without challenging the principles of concision and concentration, accepted since the XIXth century in regard to the short narrative, this dissertation focuses on strategies pertaining to narration, description and dialogue, which embrace these principles, and which enable the short narrative to distinguish itself from the novel. Within our study of internal components, we analyze how texts are grouped together into a collection. This is one aspect which is an integral part of any study of the short story. / Everything indicates that the short narrative favours concentration, while the novel tends to digress. We will establish the truth of this assertion by studying the proliferation of this narrative and narrative strategies, by examining the functions of description and the components of the portrait, and by analyzing discursive transgressions and the functions of dialogue. What follows will be a study of the composition which will begin by focusing on the "Catalogue des oeuvres de 1845", representing a state of intermediate assembling. What concerns us here is the structure of the collection in The Comedie humaine and of the various ways Balzac explored grouping his works together. / In Balzac's work, the structural differences which exist between the short story and the novel contribute to the actual development of the short narrative's poetics. This dissertation therefore forms an invaluable part of Balzacian criticism and certainly finds a place for itself in genre theory.

Originally presented as the author's Thesis (doctoral)--Johan Wolfgang von Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, 1976. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 275-280).

Thesis (B.A.)--Bi-College (Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges). Dept. of French, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thèse--Lettres--Paris, 1926. / Titre de couv. : "Guez de Balzac" Reprod. en fac-sim. de l'éd. de Paris, A. Picard, 1927. Bibliogr. p. 521-547. Index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2008. / "Graduate Program in French." Includes bibliographical references (p. 194-199).