Georges Kliebenstein
Une mystification absolue. Sur le «souper de Cazotte»
Romantisme, N. 116, 2002, pp. 19-34.
1 volume available
It is perhaps time to revisit «Cazotte's supper» (emphasizing the version provided by Nerval in Les Illuminés). The episode, as recounted by La Harpe, is all too famous: in 1788, Jacques Cazotte is supposed to have predicted the Revolution and the executions by guillotine during the Terror. This «prophecy» aroused reactions which were contradictory, but less so than one might think: the tendency to nuance these opinions to the point of neutralizing them is not the least paradox provoked by this «supper». The aim is not really to «demistify» the prophecy (to refute the illuminism using positivist rationalism) but to unravel and deconstruct its complex mechanisms - in short, to question the essence of what can be described (or not...) as a mystification.
Language
French
