L'image de la femme dans les premières oeuvres de Germain Nouveau: La clef d'une évolution littéraire

Germain Nouveau (1851–1920) evolved in the intimate literary circle of Mallarmé, Rimbaud and Verlaine. The poems of his youth, like the rest of his work, have been practically forgotten and he is remembered today more for his legendary life than for his poetry. This article tries to establish the importance and the depth of Nouveau's early work by stressing his aesthetic and spiritual coherence, mainly revealed by his vision of womanhood that can in turn be taken as a key to the later poetry. The texts analyzed are also presented as crucial examples of symbolist discourse – a genre that cannot be seriously analyzed by dismissing Germain Nouveau. (In French) (ALA)