La sympathie dans le roman: Manzoni lecteur de Sophie de Grouchy ?

The essay centres on the definition of sympathy as set out by Sophie de Grouchy in Lettres sur la sympathie, dedicated to Cabanis, and on the relationship between this work and Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, which was translated by Grouchy herself. The basic assumption is that during the transition from the Enlightenment to the Romantic era, the prevailing concept of sympathy in Enlightenment thought underwent a revision: the notion of sympathy as a reaction of sensitivity was replaced by a more complex emotion in which reason played a pivotal role, thus consolidating the natural but transient language of the body. Alessandro Manzoni also held this view, and his novel appears to have been influenced by the debate opened by the Idéologues, with whom the writer had close ties since his first stay in France, as well as by his reading of Lettres sur la sympathie.