“A saint magnetizer to be adored on one’s knees” Magnetism as art of seduction in Musset

Magnetism seems to be a secondary motif in Musset’s work, which only deals with the subject in three texts, two of which remain unfinished. A reading of these texts, to which scattered allusions are added throughout the work, nevertheless reveals a genuine fascination of the author for the theory of fluids, which he closely links to a thought of seduction. Magnetism is seductive in more ways than one: associated with an imaginary world that is sometimes libertine, sometimes fantastic, it gives readers the thrill of the strange and the forbidden. But its pleasant, even sulphurous dimension conceals deep questions on the laws governing the attraction of bodies and souls, on the flimsy line between credulity and faith and, ultimately, on the powers of writing.