Abstract: Traveling to the Orient after his first bout of madness, Nerval hopes to prove his mental health. In the text of his Voyage, when the narrator falls in love with a young Druse girl, he sees himself as the hero of a novel, choosing marriage, rather than death, as his denouement. Forced to break off the engagement, he ends his journey as a mere spectator in the theaters of Constantinople, fulfilling his quest vicariously through the plays’ characters, and no longer confusing dream and reality.
