Abstract EN:

It appears from the composition of chateaubriand's works that he could claim, as for his narrator chactas, a "mixed style". The complete woks reproduce the generic mixture of the juvenilia; along with the memorialist to be, the ladvocat edition presents us with the many facets of chateaubriand's activity. The thirty two volumes are divides into travel history politics literature, however the historical and political writings are largely neglected and critical exegesis tends to separate the statesman form the "enchanter". My purpose is altogether different : beyond generic distinctions it seems essential to define a topical and stylistic matrix accounting for the complete works as such. Each text is related to the others, quoted or recycled. In other words chateaubrianesque intratextuality is at once the means and end of our study. The outline of my dissertation reflects the bringing together of the writer's various "careers". The vocation of the memorialist and statesman is traced back throughout the so-called "literary" years. Reversely i focus on the literary legacy of the political career : a powerful epideictic rhetoric for beyond the tomb, and the delineation of the noted ethos of chateaubriand. Ultimately my thesis highlights the dual nature of his life and works, both "public" and "private", positivist and romanesque.