Pour une poétique empathique chez Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt: empathie imaginative et intertextuelle

Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt is a humanist and popular author whose oeuvre stands out for the ethical issues it raises on universal and topical themes. The corpus of his writings includes a paratextual section on the work of the writer, his narrative strategies and experiences. The author’s techniques of imaginative empathy are studied through the prism of Suzanne Keen’s theory and the concept of narrative empathy, with the aim of identifying the dominant representations and mechanisms of empathy in Schmitt’s work. Examples of narrative devices and strategies relating to his empathetic poetics are analyzed. The emergence of a particular form of auctorial empathy based on homage – the intertextual empathy – is explored in relation to Schmitt’s position of filiation with his models.

Keywords: Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, narrative empathy, imaginative empathy, intertextuality, homage