Figures du lecteur extravagant au XVIIe siècle : de la satire des fictions fabuleuses à l’éloge de l’imagination créatrice

The publication of Don Quixote in Spain is followed by a set of translations, adaptations and imitations in French literature. We can even see the emergence of many “extravagant readers” in comic novels, starting from the publication of Le Berger extravagant by Sorel in 1627-1628. The character of Lysis, that of Don Clarazel in Le Chevalier hypocondriaque by Du Verdier, and then of Juliette d’Arviane in La Fausse Clélie by Subligny, all become insane for having read too many novels using imaginative resources without limits. With the creation of such characters, the intent is to warn the reader against a certain type of reading which would yield completely to the dangers of Fiction. However, the comic novels I would like to study here also joyfully celebrate the pleasures of imagination. This is why the presence of the extravagant character involves a careful and informed type of reading in novels where inventiveness is controlled