Revisiting a Genettian Balzacism Linguistic form and stylistic values of the naming trope “X, that Y of Z”

This contribution revisits a styleme that Gérard Genette once referred to as a Balzacism, namely the naming trope X, that Y of Z. After a formal description of the trope, revealing its stylistic significance, we look at examples taken from La Comédie humaine and analyze in particular the didactic and hyperbolic value of the expression, as well as its contribution to the consolidation of the novelistic universe and to the construction of a point-of-view effect.