Abstract EN:

This thesis investigates the different ways in which a mythological character, Hercules, was understood in English and French literature at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Even though there are many classical texts about Hercules, none of them tells his whole life, nor is considered as the chief reference of the literary myth which is peculiar to Hercules. Therefore the idea people at the turn of the century had about Hercules depended upon classical literature, but also on a common representation, different in each country, which built up the full story of his life ; it also tended to merge with the image conjured up by the expressions of the everyday language. The first chapter presents the classical texts about Hercules, and shows that they are interrelated and are themselves organized into a system. In the second chapter, an inquiry using different databases, sets out the accepted ideas about Hercules, which acknowledge him as a hero, or not (third chapter). The last two chapters research the average representation of Hercules in France and Great-Britain in dictionaries, encyclopedias and handbooks of mythology, found most frequently. Then is presented an analysis of the moral and religious aspects of the myth of Hercules, very frequent in Great Britain, and the political and social ones, crucial in France. Then one may conclude that the Hercules theme is less inherited from classical literature than endowed with meaning by the standards of each period and country.