REREADING MAUPASSANT. THE INDISTINGUISHABLE SMILE. THE AVATARS OF THE GOOD TEMPERED EVIL
REREADING MAUPASSANT. THE INDISTINGUISHABLE SMILE. THE AVATARS OF THE GOOD TEMPERED EVIL

Summary/Abstract: This study, dedicated to the 175th anniversary of the birth of the great French writer Guy de Maupassant, offers a brief retrospective — necessarily incomplete, yet timely — on several essential biographical coordinates that played a decisive role in shaping his literary trajectory. It also proposes a rapid, almost urgent, rereading of his prose (novels, short stories, and novellas), with the aim of reconsidering, on one hand, the enduring relevance of Maupassant’s writing — its archetypes, recurring themes, and obsessive motifs — and, on the other, the validation of certain identity-defining narrative toposes, juxtaposed with stylistic variations and alternative modes of the epic.The study deliberately leaves open the question of Maupassant’s affiliation with the literary movements traditionally associated with his work (naturalism, realism, decadence, classicism), invoking the notion of artistic “intentionality” while subtly arguing for a reassessment of this interpretive horizon. In doing so, it gestures toward a reading unencumbered by aesthetic preconceptions—one that might instead be informed by the perspective of artistic “non-intentionality.

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