Abstract EN:

Theophile gautier (1811-1872) writes about spiritual matters throughout his work. He prefers the old testament, nevertheless, a catholic, he is ill at ease in his christian milieu, and clings fast to his own idea of a god who is both humane and lovable. The blessed and the cursed are not subject to sharp division. This impels him to shake free of the "old europe" and, like his hero fortunio, look for a religioin more in keeping with what he wants. He finds in antiquity, in egypt, in the world of islam, in greece and in india the material apt for assimilation in his personal idea of god. This conceptiion was of a neo-platonic cast : a god of light reached via the soul's aspiration, via beauty and via art. The secret of the avatar, the soul's transformation, was acquired on the way. Gautier also fell under the charm of the utopian thinkers of the day, and even of the proponents of magnetisme. Swedenborg's theory of correspondance was close to his own philosophical speculations. The theme of gautier's short story spirite presents a synthesis of his spiritual view. He gives an image of his "good god" here, as one of the possible ways of salvation. In the end, gautier sees himself above all as artist : art for him being the only way that man, born into original sin, can quench his thirst for religion and give expression to the ground of his being as god's own creature.