Le Paraphraste et son double Sur la « présence » de saint Jean dans les « Proses évangéliques »

The critical interest of Saint John for the study of Arthur Rimbaud’s Proses évangéliques is not limited to the narrative and doctrinal data of the biblical chapters which it freely adapts. Apart from Jesus, the character of John –described in Renan’s Vie de Jésus both as a mystery-inducing figure as well as one shrouded in mystery– appeared to Rimbaud as an object of identification filled with virtualities and, as such, served to him as an additional motive of play with the Christian signifier.