Literary Neurodivergence Before Neurodiversity, or Neuroqueering French Literature from Stendhal to Wittig (1839-1984

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What is a poetics of neurodivergence and what new and revealing light can it throw on key works of French-language literature? What can these works, in turn, tell us about neurodivergence? This thesis will draw on cutting-edge studies on neurodiversity to reimagine how we think about iconic literary texts and their real-world implications. It will offer, for the first time, neurodivergent and neuroqueer readings of canonical works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French-language literature created before the emergence of the neurodiversity paradigm in the 1990s. Rather than 'diagnosing' characters or authors, this study will examine neurodivergent and neuroqueer 'resonances' in texts.