Jean-Baptiste Del Amo: Bloodhound and animalist

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the 18th century’s sources of Une éducation libertine by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo. This immersive novel showcases a young man initiation story as a rake’s progress. Our transartistic and transtextual approach will allow us to explain the Del Amo storyworld and founts. We focus, in particular, on the daily life in Paris in 1760 (Paris, professions, money, food, cafés, theaters…), in some clichés of the 18th century (justice, sexuality, religion, ‘libertinage’…), the symbolic world of Del Amo and his onomastic exploration. We expose this approach in order to prove that this novel is a tribute to the 18th century but also to evidence that is a masterpiece of the 21th century.