Nerval in Les Fous littéraires by Gustave Brunet (1880)

This article aims to study how Nerval is included in a typology that is characterized by the reversals that it permits as much as by the principle of uncertainty that it allows. We rely on the notice “Nerval” extracted from the work of Gustave Brunet Les Fous littéraires (1880), considered as an attempt at a systematic synthesis of the issues of literary madness as they have unfolded over more than half a century of capricious inventions and nosographic hypotheses.