Ye Xu

The PhD work on neurosis led me to discover the collective interest of French writers in the question of psychophysiological sensitivity as well as considerable tensions between different thingkings on this subject during the last three decades of the 19th century. Following on from this work, my current research focuses on the place and the image of sensation in French literature. Literary criticism of this time converged to indicate a literary tendency to underline, enrich, intensify and even idealize sensory experience, which they presented as a characteristic novelty in literature. At the same time, this discourse was accompanied by a doxa proclaiming that the sensory irritation is an inevitable result of modern civilisation. These discourses seem to imply that senses are awakening in this age, that they are portrayed in literature in a way that has never been done before. From that, it is difficult not to notice an emergence, even an ascendance of sensation in French literary works and criticism of the second half of the 19th century. This movement is, moreover, highlighted by the dialogues that multiply between different genres of writing (novels, poetry, criticism, journalism etc.).

By considering the links that closely unite literature with scientific knowledge, moral ideas, philosophical proposals and artistic trends from 1850 to 1900, we can ask a question essential for understanding this period: what constitutes the epistemological, ideological and artistic conditions that allow the development of a tendency towards "sensationism" in literature, as well as the profusion of discourses aimed at revealing, analysing and judging it ?