« (Ainsi parlent les araignées) » : Les prosopopées sans anthropocentrisme de l’histoire naturelle romantique

Abstract

This paper focuses on the use of prosopopeia in naturalistic writing by questioning, from the perspective of contemporary animalistic philosophy, the values that can be associated with this form of anthropomorphism. Starting from the example of Michelet, it reveals a paradox that is constitutive of Romantic natural history, whose concern for the animal finds expression in ancient discursive forms that seem to deny the singularity and the very animality of animals. By comparing rhetoric with Michelet’s thought, this paper shows that at a time in literary and scientific history, anthropomorphism has paradoxically been the stylistic expression of a continuist and even animist philosophy.

Keywords

• anthropomorphism
• natural history
• prosopopeia
• Michelet (Jules)
• romanticism
• anthropodenial