Les « tourments infernaux » ou le romanesque noir dans les romans d’Antoine Prévost

This article analyzes a few of the descriptions and scenes that helped Antoine Prévost earn his reputation as a precursor of the gothic novel in order to understand the specificity of his noir fiction. It shows that its main subject matter is the human psyche and that the aesthetics of fear, for Prévost, cannot be separated from a detailed exploration of violent psychic crises through the form of an individual account.