Abstract EN:

The goal of this thesis is to define the principles of an aesthetics of the everyday in Stéphane Mallarmé’s work so as to go beyond the opposition often put forward between frivolous and deep literary works. More specifically, the aim is to evaluate the unity of the poet’s work by examining the writings usually considered minor, such as his texts on decorative art or his so-called Vers de circumstance, no less than the writings considered major, such as the poems of the Poésies. It becomes evident that the poet distances himself from the traditional hierarchy of arts and genres that tends to assign a low value to an aesthetics of the everyday. For Mallarmé, the decorative object embodies a beauty consisting of a series of necessary relations that spiritualise it and confer on it a suggestive power. Its shine and colours reflect the solar drama that is a symbol of man’s condition on earth, and it serves as an instrument of a domestic cult of the human spirit. The image of the solar drama and its suggestive associations can be found in many poetic texts, where the everyday is transmuted into dream and music and grounds a « metapoetic dimension », facilitating a conception of the unity of an aesthetics of the everyday.