Mémoire et oubli dans L’An 2440 de Louis-Sébastien Mercier

• Authors: Szabolcs Enikö

Title variants

EN

MEMORY AND FORGETTING IN THE YEAR 2440 BY LOUIS-SÉBASTIEN MERCIER

• Languages of publication: FR

Abstracts

EN

In Mercier’s futuristic novel published in 1771, the author’s alter ego wakes up one day as a sevenhundred-year-old man and he rediscovers the city of Paris in the company of a citizen of the 25th century. Memory and forgetting can be interpreted in different ways in the novel: on the one hand, we can see how the elderly man remembers his own time, what memories he keeps from the 18th century, and also how the people of this new Paris are kept in the memory of future generations. On the other hand, we will examine the author’s point of view, especially the influence of the philosophers of his time. During Mercier’s meditations on the tombs and ruins, it is mainly the impact of Diderot’s thoughts that dominates, and these passages show that the notions of memory and forgetting are closely related to those of imagination and dream.

Keywords

FR

roman d’anticipation; utopie; ruines; tombeaux; Denis Diderot

EN

futuristic novel; utopia; ruins; tombs; Denis Diderot

• Publisher: Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Arts, Czech Republic
• Journal: Svět literatury – Časopis pro novodobé literatury (World of Literature – Journal for Modern Literatures)
• Year: 2020
• Volume: XXX
• Issue: Zvláštní číslo – Le monde de la littérature
• Pages: 51-60

Contributors

author

Szabolcs Enikö

• Université de Szeged

Identifiers

DOI

10.14712/23366729.2020.3.4