Nous n'avons jamais été dix-neuviémistes, ou l'Avenir d'un avant-dernier siècle

Studies of nineteenth-century French literature were constituted by a triple rupture: between the twentieth-century scholar and the nineteenth-century writer, between the modernity of the post-Revolutionary era and the archaism of the ancien régime, and between literary and nonliterary discourse. It has become increasingly apparent that profound continuities and complicities bridge these divides, which are less real than ordinary disciplinary practice assumes them to be. As we approach the millennium, and thus a new distancing of the nineteenth century, it may be time to rethink the very existence of nineteenth-century French studies. (In French) (WRP)