Un esprit de chevalerie au XXe siècle: Alphonse de Châteaubriant, Jean de La Varende et Henry de Montherlant.

This research project, that deals with “The imaginary of the nobility in French literature: 1900-1950”, takes place within the context of GOA/CRA (Geconcerteerde Onderzoeksacties/Concerted Research Actions) “Literature and its multiple identities”, which is overseen by research group MDRN. These last decades the role(s) and place(s) of European, and more specifically, French nobility within twentieth-century society has been at the center of attention of several historical and sociological studies. We would like to refer to the studies by François de Negroni (La France Noble, 1974), historian Arno J. Mayer (The Persistence of the Old Regime : Europe to the Great War, 1981), sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (La Distinction. Critique sociale du jugement, 1979), his disciples Didier Lancien and Monique de Saint Martin (they edited Anciennes et nouvelles aristocraties de 1880 à nos jours, préface de Pierre BOURDIEU, 2007 & Saint Martin published L’Espace de la noblesse, 1993), Christian de Bartillat (Histoire de la noblesse française (1. Les aristocrates : de la Révolution au Second Empire & 2. Les nobles : du Second Empire à la fin du XXe siècle, 1988 ; 1991) and Eric Mension-Rigau (Aristocrates et grands bourgeois. Éducation, traditions, valeurs, 1994), among others. Only recently, literary scholars have started to share that interest in the functions and places of European and, more specifically, French nobility in twentieth-century literature with their colleagues who are active in the fields of history and sociology. We would like to refer to Len Platt’s Aristocracies of Fiction. The Idea of Aristocracy in Late-Nineteenth-Century and Early-Twentieth-Century Literary Culture (2001) and to David Martens’s Lettres de noblesse. L’imaginaire nobiliaire dans la littérature française, 2016), as well as to the symposium that was organized by MDRN and that took place in Leuven on 21 and 22 March 2013 (« L’imaginaire nobiliaire de la littérature moderne »/”The Aristocratic Imaginary of Modern Literature”). This specific PhD thesis deals with the imaginary of the nobility – aristocratic representation(s), the presence of a specific system of values/axiology that is associated with nobility, among many other aspects – within the oeuvres by Alphonse de Châteaubriant, Jean de La Varende and Henry de Montherlant. This thesis will be a contribution to the field of literary history. It combines socio-historical study with literary research and discourse analysis.status: publishe