Du blason littéraire ou La mise en abyme en littérature

Résumé (en anglais)

The "mise en abime" or the setting in heart is a term borrowed from the technique of the coats of arms. A "figure" is put in "abime" or in « heart » when, together with other figures, it is placed in the center of the shield and does not touch other figures. It is in fact a miniature of the whole image placed in its heart. The relations established between this heart and the whole image is similar to the relation between the container and the content. This technique was applied in the fine arts (see the baroque, the paintings of Matzys, Martin Van Newenhoven, Memling, Velasquez), but also in writing since the beginning of literature to the present times, since the Odyssee to Shakespeare, Poe, Melville, Hoffmann, Flaubert, Zola, Maupassant, Valéry, Proust, Gide, and the Nouveau Roman.