<p>In this dissertation I argue that the movement of panoramic literature under the July Monarchy (1830-1848) and its influence on the nineteenth-century urban novel must be re-imagined in the context of the proto-sociological movement of positivism. Existing criticism on panoramic literature typically views this movement as emerging from early-nineteenth-century urban upheaval. I focus here instead on early pre-sociological theory. Published concurrently with these panoramic texts whose popularity peaked in the early 1840s, the progressive theories of Auguste Comte (collected, in particular, in his Cours de philosophie positive from 1830-1842) promulgated a scientific, observational approach to the study of society. Throughout the five chapters of this project, I will posit that authors of urban novels, including Balzac, Paul de Kock and Zola, grappled with these theories actively, if implicitly at times, and that we can see this engagement most clearly in the passages employing the typological descriptions known as the tableaux de Paris, so central to panoramic literature.</p> / Dissertation

Aux alentours de 1830, le romantisme s'impose sur les scènes théâtrales. À une manière nouvelle d'envisager le ballet fait écho une manière nouvelle de le représenter. Celui-ci peine toutefois à se dire pour lui-même, et dans cette bataille du dire, c'est la danseuse, à défaut de la danse, qui devient l'objet principal des représentations. La ballerine cristallise le dualisme essentiel de l'imaginaire romantique et se retrouve au cœur d'une entreprise de mise en légende et de légitimation de l'art chorégraphique. Le dire de la danse passe désormais par une mythographie. L'enjeu ultime est dans la définition du corps romantique de la danse. Les procédures de mythification déterminent un corps proprement décent - le corps glorieux de la danse. Ce corps métaphorique n'est pourtant que l'avers d'un autre corps - le corps terrestre de la danse. Dans les envers du théâtre est ainsi dévoilé le corps de la danse au travail, corps faillible et souffrant, éternel prix à payer de la féerie. / Around 1830, Romanticism prevails on theatre stages. The new perspective on performance as a whole leads to a new perception of ballet. However, ballet struggles to assert its specificity and in the battle of words that unfolds, the ballerina, rather than the ballet, becomes the main focus onstage. The ballerina cristallizes the duality that is key to the Romantic vision. She thus finds herself at the heart of a campaign to elevate her to the status of legend, which is also a way for ballet to gain recognition. The narrative of ballet, from this point onwards, has to rely on a mythography. What is ultimately at stake is the definition of the Romantic dancing body. The mythologizing process creates a chaste body : the glorious dancing body. However, this metaphorical body is but the antithesis of another one : the earthy dancing body. Finally, it is backstage in the theatre that the dancing body is unveiled at work, frail and in pain, forever the price to pay for enchantment.