La Rumeur et le portrait de Lovelace: Formes et fonctions de la parole diffusée dans Clarissa

Abstract

Insistent, diffuse, rumor plays an essential part in Clarissa. Running parallel to the cluster of letters that compose the epistolary collection, masterly orchestrated by the rake Lovelace, rumor is the instrument of a communication that is all the more efficient as it is indirect. This article underlines the dynamics and the shapes that indirect communication takes in the novel as well as the role of domesticity in this process. It provides an analysis of the peculiar economy of rumor band concludes by studying the rumorologic narrative at work in the so-called Rosebud case.