The idea explored in this thesis is that the Reverie is a distinct literary genre, which found its birth with the realization of the Reveries du Promeneur solitaire by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The analysis of that text suggests that the literary Reverie is defined by the thoughts it contains about language's power to reflect reality accurately. In this context, Rousseau's book appears to be a place of experimentation in which the author attempts to capture his inner self and the world that surrounds him, as precisely as possible. The notion of referent plays a key role in this study. It is by observing the way Rousseau uses referents of different natures, that we will be able to understand Reverie as a literary genre. We start our study by attempting to define the Reverie as a genre. We then compare it to other literary genres with which it shares similarities. In the following sections, we analyze both the internal and external referents present in Rousseau's text. Nature, people, memories and imagination are some of the referents we consider. We finally observe some referents that are both internal and external. This leads us to understand how Rousseau tries to convey a "total referent" through his Reveries.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.23237 |
| Date | January 1995 |
| Creators | Perrault, Isabelle, 1968- |
| Contributors | Terrasse, Jean (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | French |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Département de langue et littérature françaises.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001475033, proquestno: MM07952, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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