Les traces du Moyen-Âge dans Gaspard de la nuit d’Aloysius Bertrand

Traces of the Middle Agesin Gaspard de de la nuit by Aloysius Bertrand

Abstract

Gaspard de la nuit is a collection of prose poems whose charm lies in the treatment of the medieval motif. Aloysius Bertrand uses poetry as a means of extricating oneself from reality to find consoling visions in the mirages of the medieval period. Therefore, the representations of the Middle Ages from Bertrand’s pen are essentially dreamlike. The view he casts on this period is far from that of a historian. What is above all paradoxical in this work is the absence of temporal rupture. Thus, the city of Dijon, where this poetic
pilgrimage takes place, confusedly offers in its architecture and certain of its spaces many elements which attest to a certain continuity of the Middle Ages in the 19th century to which our poet belongs. The Middle Ages presents two facets in its work : one attractive which is tinged with a certain religious and nobility solemnity, the other ffrightening.