Entre discours littéraire et discours scientifique – un dilemme de l’auteur d’un récit de voyage: Les Observations de Pierre Belon du Mans

The present paper focuses on relationships and tensions between literary and scientific discourses in the following editions of Oriental travel accounts by Pierre Belon du Mans. This French traveller, naturalist and doctor travelled across Greece, Egypt, Jerusalem and Turkey between 1546 and 1549 and, afterwards, published three volumes of Les Observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables, trouvées en Grece, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie, et autres pays estranges. Whereas in the first edition (1553), he put emphasis to dynamics of narration and differentiation between his own adventures and those of other travellers, in the second one (1555), he introduced some major changes, which were to underline the scientific nature of his trip. Those changes show, on one hand, the pressions the author underwent when he wanted to meet the scientific requirements of his times and, on the other hand, a kind of crisis he experienced being trapped between literary and scientific discourses and their stylistics.