Madrépores et métaphores : Laforgue, la philosophie et la « nouvelle psychologie »

While Laforgue’s interest in Schopenhauer and Hartmann has been extensively studied, less attention has been paid to his reading of the contemporary “nouvelle psychologie.” This paper stresses the centrality and the specifically poetic treatment that Laforgue gives to the key themes of this trend: the challenging of the “ego”; skeptical nominalism; and the spatialization of the subject. The former ego, once decentered, rejected, or, in Laforgue’s terms, “madreporized,” becomes poetic material, unfolding anagrammatic and metaphorical virtualities.