This article examines the progressive secularization of vanity in the 17th and 18th centuries. Once removed from its theocentric origins, vanity will denote less the vacuity and transience of earthly life and will refer increasingly to socially indecorous behavior that is firmly anchored in the temporal. This shift from the sa-cred to the saeculum will also cause a shift in the way we imagine vanity ’s connoted movements. Once the transient and fleeting, vanity in the 18th century will come to designate the unpliable and the rigid.
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Cet article propose de considérer la laïcisation progressive de la vanité aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Une fois sortie du champ théocentrique, la vanité dénotera moins la vacuité et la brièveté de la vie terrestre qu ’une une malséance sociale qui va à l ’encontre des mœurs du temps et qui s ’inscrit donc dans le temporel. Ce glissement du sacré au saeculum entrainera aussi un changement par rapport au mouvement qu ’elle connote. Si jadis, la vanité était le passager et le fugace, elle désignera désor-mais l ’impliable et le rigide.
The aim of this article is to reflect on the features of textual time in three works of Marcel Schwob: Le Livre de Monelle, La Croisade des enfants, and Vies imaginaires. In Schwob’s writing, the concept of time serves to create and transform the meanings of the text. In order to analyse his idea of time, it seems necessary to revisit Bergson’s concept of subjective time experienced through the mode of duration, which refers to time as it is experienced or measured by the consciousness of man. This subjective perception of time, along with the attitude of waiting, come to the fore in Livre de Monelle. Moreover, the polyphonic presentation of the children’s crusade reflects Schwob’s desire to reject traditional notions of temporality by juxtaposing fragmentary stories in accordance with the cult of the moment. Additionally, the depiction of the moment of birth in certain biographies from Vies imaginaires serves as a poetic and symbolic announcement of the moment of death.
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