Statut de l'image rhétorique et de l'image peinte dans le Pèlerinage de Vie Humaine de Guillaume de Deguileville

Résumé 0

The status of the rhetorical image and the painted image in the “Pèlerinage de vie humaine” by Guillaume de Deguilleville The success of two editions of the “Pèlerinage de vie humaine” (PH1, PH2) by Guillaume de Deguilleville in the 14th and 15th Centuries has to some extent been sustained by an abundant iconography. The author himself has in two areas explicitly programmed its illustration: the image of the square of Peace is in the tradition of Hugues Saint-Victor’s diagrams and that of devotional monastic practice; the laide beste (ugly beast) Satan is an imago agens soliciting affects on behalf of an art of memory. In PH2, the author nevertheless expresses his distrust of a poetics of enargeia which overemphasizes the attraction of the image, whether rhetorical or painted, and makes the case for a virtuous, word-based “analysis” of the image. But the attractive strength of the image still operates, and thereby indicates the autonomy of the fiction, impervious to any edifying interpretation.