Chateaubriand essayiste dans l’Essai sur la Littérature anglaise De l’art de la digression constructive

In the Essai sur la littérature anglaise, Chateaubriand gives in to his taste for compilation and digression. What might seem to be a fault of the work emerges instead as its secret organising principle : through a process of constructive digression, Chateaubriand takes leave of his subjects in order to better emphasise them. In this rhapsodic work, the valorisation of “génies-mères” reaches its grand finale in relation to the author himself.