Mémoire et autorité: Chateaubriand ironiste

The article attempts to highlight Chateaubriand’s ideological and æsthetic ambivalence as he responds to the transformation of religious and political authority with the advent of democracy. Five forms of irony are identified in his work, from the Essai sur les révolutions to the Mémoires d’outre-tombe and the Vie de Rancé. They express the varying representations he gives of what is both irreconcilable and inescapable in his historical experience. (In French) (PK)