Victor Hugo's expression « La Chose de Waterloo » emphasizes the two hundred year quandary of adequately describing the battle, held on June 18th 1815. What are the various ways in which a variety of texts (history books, memoirs, novels, poetry, plays) have tried to evoke this event? This book tries to understand the mechanisms of this phenomenon which, by telling the same events over and over, makes them more precise and less clear at the same time. The question is approached through the study of some of the most famous literary representations of the battle (Stendhal, Hugo), but also through less well-known texts.
Avec des contributions de/contributors:
Andrea Del Lungo, Philippe Dufour, Jean-Marc Hovasse, Jean-Marc Largeaud, Boris Lyon-Caen, Catherine Mariette, Claude Millet, Jacques Neefs, Michael Rosenfeld, Tiphaine Samoyault, Nathalie Saudo-Welby, Nicole Savy, Pierre Schoentjes, Catriona Seth, Alain Vaillant, Damien Zanone.
All interested (academics and students, but not only) in the relationships between literature and history, and especially anyone concerned in the napoleonic period.