Barbarie, émotion et altérité : les affects « excessifs » de la slavité fin-de-siècle dans Les Noronsoff de Jean Lorrain

Amidst all the collective emotions prevailing in 19th century France, a remarkable one is fear, which can be perceived in the myth of Barbarian invasions. The opposition between the so-called “civilized” and “barbarian” men is rooted in the emotional excess and disorders which are thought to affect the latter. In Jean Lorrain ’s Les Noronsoff (1902) a Russian character, whose excessive actions are both comical and pathetic, embodies fin-de-siecle barbary. In the racialist ideology of that time, Slavic people were said to lack a stable nature and to tend to imitation and metamorphosis. This choice of a Slavic character illustrates the variation between (civilized) identity and (barbarian) alterity. Slavic barbary, which combines the two faces of barbary (interior and exterior), reveals both the fear and the fascination raised when contemplating emotional flows spreading without control, and reflecting one ’s own identity.