Types (il)lisibles Lecture physiologique dans Ferragus de Balzac

This article focuses on how Balzac’s short novel Ferragus incorporates the rhetorical strategies of physiological sketching and relies on typologizing language to disrupt moral judgments that apply to the legibility of personality. The narrative digressions and long pseudo-ethnographic tableaux of Parisian phenomena in Ferragus create expectations for the reader at the level of the characters, but manage to shake them up immediately.