Problemes et enjeux litteraires en histoire naturelle au dix-huitieme siecle
Institution:
Lyon 2Disciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
Natural history can be studied without dismembering it nor reducing it to theoretical debates (generation, evolution. . . ). It was a genre in and of itself, rivaling the novel, whose blossoming occurred in the 18th century. This genre is defined not so much by specific topics as by certain practices which all have a literary nature. Four principal scientific procedures - describing, naming, observing, experimenting - give rise to a variety of exchanges between science and literature, both necessary and reciprocal since, on the one hand, natural history draws from literature the solution to its problems, and, on the other hand, by dealing with these problems, it influences literature and becomes itself literature. Who in the eighteenth century, for example, gave more thought to description and used it better than buffon, daubenton, reaumur or adanson ? natural history is, moreover, engaged in two non-scientific activities : vulgarizing and dealing in cliches. In both cases, the scientist finds himself confronted with the technical and ethical issues of writing and re-writing. These worries are often considered simply as snags in scientific thinking, which could have been avoided ; but natural history's strongest originality lies in the acute consciousness of the constraints pertaining to the public and to intertextuality. Neglected today, the literary stakes of natural history were recognized by the french novelists of the 19th century.
Abstract FR:
On peut etudier l'histoire naturelle sans la morceler ni la reduire a des debats theoriques (generation, evolution. . . ). Ce fut en effet un genre a part entiere, rival du roman, dont l'essor correspondit au 18eme siecle. Ce genre se definit moins par des objets specifiques que par quelques pratiques qui ont toutes un caractere litteraire. Quatre gestes scientifiques principaux - nommer, decrire, observer, experimenter - donnent lieu a des echanges varies entre science et litterature, necessaires et reciproques, puisque d'une part l'histoire naturelle puise dans la litterature la solution a ses problemes et que d'autre part, en traitant ces problemes, elle influence la litterature, et devient elle- meme litterature. Qui au dix-huitieme siecle, par exemple, a plus reflechi a la description et l'a mieux pratiquee que buffon, daubenton, reaumur ou adanson ? l'histoire naturelle est en outre engagee dans deux activites exterieures a la science : la vulgarisation et le commerce des lieux communs. Dans les deux cas le savant se trouve confronte a des problemes techniques et ethiques d'ecriture et de reecriture. On considere souvent ces soucis simplement comme des ecueils pour la pensee scientifique, et qui auraient pu etre evites ; mais c'est une originalite profonde et constitutive de l'histoire naturelle que la conscience aigue des contraintes liees au public et a l'intertextualite. Negligee aujourd'hui, l'importance des enjeux litteraires de l'histoire naturelle fut reconnue par les romanciers du 19eme siecle.