Mémoire et imagination dans La Jeunesse du Commandeur de l’abbé Prévost

This paper dedicated to the issue of the memory and the novel in the 18 th century aims at question-ing the memoir-novels, as a privileged form of the fiction during the first half of the century. The memoir-novel is indeed based on memories of a hero-narrator reminiscing about his past love life. As memory and imagination are strongly linked in the thought of the 17 th and 18 th century, the question of their relationship is particularly relevant in the novels by Antoine Prévost, insofar as his heroes claim to produce a pathetic effect and seduce their interlocutor/reader. Our reflection takes as an example La Jeunesse du Commandeur (1741) — a kind of “reverse story” to that of the Chevalier Des Grieux — where memory and imagination are put at the service of a burlesque treatment of passion.