Du sublime romantique au sublime technologique : la nature et la machine dans L’Ève Future de Villiers de l’Isle Adam

Based on Leo Marx’s expression, « the technological sublime », this article analyzes science and technology as new incarnations of the sublime in nineteenth-century literature. The characteristics of the sublime, as defined by Edmund Burke, were formerly attributed to nature in Romantic literature. In his novel, The Future Eve, published in 1886, French writer Villiers narrates the creation of a machine woman, described as a « sublime creature », illustrating nineteenth-century new faith in science.