“The cruel impossibility of loving” The danger of emotions in Barbey d'Aurevilly's early works

We examine the impossibility of experiencing emotions in two of Barbey d'Aurevilly's early works : Léa and L'Amour impossible. In both cases, a tragic vision of emotions emerges due to the effects they produce on those who try to experience or provoke them. However, from a pragmatic point of view, emotions prove to be fruitful, as they are part of this emotional reading pact, which in the mature short stories translates into a poetics of shock.