La tradition de l'ennui splenetique en France, de Christine de Pisan a Baudelaire. (French text)

In the dissertation, I propose to show, by studying essential and representative works of many genres, the critical evolution of the concept of ennui through its multidimensional aspects.;It stands to reason that from the solitary and melancholic complaints of Christine de Pisan (1363-1431) to Baudelaire's mystical quest of the infinite in Les fleurs du mal (1857), lies a great span of time. During such lengthy interval, characteristic works of different eras, schools of thought and visions of the world have flourished, our task remains to recover the scattered compatible elements whose unity forms the syndrome of splenetic ennui.;Our diachronic analysis will aim at Petrarch and his delectatio morosa, Marot's incoercible and iconoclastic behavior, Sceve's cosmic malaise, Louise Labe's difficulty of being, Ronsard's cosmic fatalism and Du Bellay's metamorphosis into the vegetable kingdom.;The motility of ennui from the Renaissance will transmute during the 17th century into a metaphysical, mystical and secular form, exemplified in the works of Corneille whose second generation of heroes will experience a disintegration of the will.;During the 18th century, numerous "philosophes" will, as it happened through the Renaissance, celebrate life. From Candide's garden of nothingness, one would enter Rousseau's quest of the void, Bernardin's solitary confinement and negative state of happiness.;Through the preromantic tradition will emerge Chateaubriand with Rene's onanistic illusions and "vague des passions". Musset with his "mal du siecle" will portray the convulsive political events of the fall of the empire and the subsequent vacuity of the world. Both Senancour and Baudelaire express a metaphysical, moral and spiritual malaise.;Splenetic ennui although often manifested at a superficial level will be perceived with Baudelaire and hereafter as expression of an ontological debate through which humankind will address its most poignant existential interrogations. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.).