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Résumé de la communication de Claire BAREL-MOISAN (CNRS, Lyon, France) donnée à l'occasion du séminaire Les constructions en milieu marin du 14 au 19 mars 2016Analyzing the way the sea has been represented in French Modern Literature covers an extremely vast field, too wide for a seminar talk. Here, I concentrated on a more specific question, directly related to the issue this seminar deals with. I decided to focus on the way literature describes submarine worlds, and how authors represent building under the sea: both natural constructions (madrepores building reefs) and man-made constructions.The temporal scope of this study covers a century, from the second half of the nineteenth century to the 1950s. This corresponds to technical changes that profoundly modified the image of the sea in cultural representations. Around 1850-1860, there were major improvements made to diving suits, so that one could observe submarine life with an accuracy that had never been possible before. Jules Verne's novel, 20 000 leagues under the sea is a major testimony of this change: it is the first book in modern literature that gives lengthy and accurate descriptions of submarine sceneries. Ending this study in the 1950s also comes from technical changes of the time, which produced an evolution in contemporary representations. The ability to film underwater was developed and much improved in this decade, and Cousteau's film The World of silence. The public then got to see extraordinary images of life under the sea, which became more familiar to him. Thanks to such films, with this more widely shared knowledge about submarine life, representations in literature also evolved, dealing with new issues, such as ecological preservation.My talk was organized with five main steps:The Imagery of the seaVery ancient texts, like the Genesis in the Bible, are at the root of the image of the sea in the occidental word (chaos, infinite, and threat of creatures that escaped the ruling of man when he named the rest of the living creatures; and the oceans seen as a remains of the deluge).Natural marine constructions: The Sea, by Michelet (1861)In Michelet's work, natural history is mixed with philosophy and and madrepores are described as "world makers". They appear as the origin of an evolutionary pattern based on the theories of Lamarck. Michelet's naturalistic thought is thus both philosophical, political, this evolutionary trend leading marine creatures towards mobility and freedom.Men under the sea: Jules Verne, Twenty thousand leagues under the sea (1869-1870)I first studied illustrations of the novel: what are the typical episodes for an adventure under the sea, how does the Nautilus appears as a quintessence of culture opposed to the wilderness and dangers of undersea creatures. We confronted these illustrations with texts describing, for the first time in French literature, submarine sceneries. The discovery of Atlantis was the last step of this study, shedding the light on Captain Nemo's romantic figure.Underwater cities in popular literature (1890-1940)Various French popular novels, after Jules Verne, go further than his fiction, imagining people actually building cities under the sea and living there, and thus constructing utopias or dystopias.Building on the sea: Propeller island (1895) by Jules Verne as an inspiration for utopian architectsJules Verne's fiction ridicules the excessive ambition of millionaires, who build a gigantic artificial floating island. Reverting the message of this book, utopian contemporary architects used it as a model for their creations.Thus, this talk aimed at following the itinerary of a specific theme in literature: constructions in the sea. It was the heart of a philosophical system in Michelet's work, given an unexpected dignity and importance. A few years later, Verne published the first fiction that put submarine worlds at the center of a novel. We analyzed the effective mix between vulgarization and action, Verne inventing a new poetic prose to describe underwater sceneries. This theme then became a popular topic, a stereotype. Popular novels appeared as open spaces for freedom of imagination, producing utopias or dystopias. Literature thus shaped a new imagery, which circulated after 1950 through different medias: cinema (science fiction films), comics, mangas, novels. These intermedial fictions now deal with ecological issues, questioning in a new way the interdependence between man and the sea.Summary