Abstract EN:

This work, based on a meticulous analysis of richard de fournival's bestiaire d'amour and of the livre des animaux (i. E. A subdivision of brunetto latini's livre du tresor), proposes some hypotheses about the evolution of moralizing bestiaries during the second half of the xiiith century. Several points are carefully studied : the dispositio of both works, which breaks away from the standard manner; the way in which they build new signs by transforming the conventional figurative writing ; the differences between these new types of narratives and those created by the books of exempla. Thus, we can state that "allegorism" is then receding. As a matter of fact, both works give evidence of a pragmatism unknown in the canonical bestiaries and, at least to such an extent, in the encyclopaedic speech : the manner in which brunetto latini interprets animals is rational, whereas richard de fournival uses them to defend a realistic erotic code that refuses all love codifications, and especially those of courtesy. Breaking away from idealism, both works, each in its own way, and through their joint effect, play a major part in the disappearance of moralizing bestiaries.