Abstract EN:

After defining the notion of type, it's possible to describe the balzacian physician: his background, always middle class, his studies, his beginnings in life, his daily difficult practice. In society, the physician proves to be a dominating character, but in private he's far less pleasant, he's fond of money, often married by convenience, with little culture and beliefs. His figure and his physical appearance draw a not much attractive character. Behind this typical description, it's possible to see Balzac at work: his setting of the character in the text reveals the balzacian concept of the physician which is a romantic utility. When replaced in the cultural speech of that time, the balzacian physician represents a living type concerned about his own image in literature. The author receives the influence of the surrounding physiological speech and becomes a physician author in his writing and his way of thinking, giving a predominant place to the physician for the whole literary posterity. La Comédie humaine, as a whole, can be read as a poetic physiology of the physician author.