La masculinité à l’épreuve de l’âge. Pour une approche de l’œuvre de Pierre-Simon Ballanche

Résumé En

Focusing on Pierre Simon Ballanche’s complete works, this article aims to identify the implicit and recurrent opposition that the philosopher-writer maintained and developed between masculinity and virility. The author, it should be said, did not go beyond praising virility and carefully avoided taking into account the emerging notion of masculinity. This article is structured around a study of terms employed and offers a variety of examples of Ballanche’s philological quest. The political stakes conditioning the difference between the masculine and the virile perhaps reveal Ballanche’s regret regarding the evolution of a society that he wished to remind of the political, religious and moral foundations that it should be contemplating. In this way, whilst calling upon the texts of ancient history and mythology, Ballanche composed sorts of parables to educate his contemporaries. The texts he called upon most frequently were those of Orphée and Antigone because they outline a Christian vision for rehabilitating Antiquity. L’homme sans nom, Le Vieillard et le jeune homme provide readings looking at how the values of the masculine and of virility are put to the test of time and also examining the values that they took on in the present, due to the recent historical upheavals. Consequently, the romantic questions of the flight of time, of the ideal and of love are confronted with the opposing markers that the nascent masculinity seeks to displace. Ultimately, this is the foundation of the romanticism of his texts, that is all too often forgotten and yet deserving of renewed attention.