Abstract: This article looks at how Charles Nodier approached the socio-cultural reality that he discovered in 1812 in the Illyrian Provinces from an angle that could already be described as “comparatist”: Starting from a desire to collect local “material,” the young writer envisaged elaborating a “general” history and placing this information in a wider context. Moreover, the Illyrian “domain” clearly influenced the French Romantic’s philological studies just as it did his aesthetic reflection on the relationship between literary folklore and literature.
