Rêves de pierre: la littérature par la sculpture au dix-neuvième siècle

What does sculpture reveal about the functioning of literary art as an art of non-tangible imagination in the Nineteenth Century? This article examines the way in which Romantic literature is constituted by and through sculpture, on three levels: thematic, aesthetic and poetic. As a theme in literature, the statue is most often dreamt of in a fragmented way, as a reversal of the myth of Pygmalion. On the aesthetic level, the haptic presence of sculpture underscores the empathic function of literature, in which even the most visual scenes of hypotyposis imply a sensoriality that goes far beyond a mere visible effect on the reader’s side. Finally, on a poetic level, the references to sculpture in the texts reveal the writer’s method of composition through the rejection of the possibles of the story. (in French)