La poétique de l'esquisse littéraire: L'Italie d'hier des Frères Goncourt

This contrastive reading of the Goncourt Brothers' L'Italie d'hier and the unpublished travel diary upon which it was based attributes to the travel narrative the ambiguous status of "literary sketch." An examination of some of the formel and stylistic choices made by Edmond de Goncourt as he prepared the travel diary for publication reveals a tension between discontinuity and wholeness, between spontaneous creation and literary craft. The study identifies Edmond de Goncourt's contribution to the development of a new esthetic paradigm, the fragment, whereby a literary work need not be "finished" to be definitive. (In French) (WAG)