SOURCE: "Le Merveilleux scientifique and the Fantastic," in L'Esprit Créateur, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3, Fall, 1988, pp. 9-22.

In the following essay, Gordon investigates the influence of nineteenth-century psychiatric theories on Gautier's short fiction.

The title of my essay might have been: "Qu'est-ce qui fait travailler l'Imaginaire des lecteurs parisiens du XIX^e siècle?" I believe an evolution, both in the themes/exploration of the unconscious and in the production of the effects that make up the Fantastic can be traced through the study of the psychiatric theories and nosography of the nineteenth century. In what measure did authors have recourse to these documents, and to what extent did they furnish these writers with new effects for their tales?

In 1865, Théophile Gautier published Spirite, the last of his récits fantastiques, a genre he had practiced for some 30 years. A few months later, in the same columns...