The fictional writer between modelling and caricature at the end of the 19th century

During the Belle Epoque, the writer's novel gradually replaces the painter's novel and forms a platform for asking questions about the role of the author in bourgeois society and the causes of their distress. Through this work, the author thus conveys an axiological portrait of himself which, implicitly referring to the difficulty of creation, gives an account of the values shaping the end of the century. The resulting modelling incorporates caricature, which becomes omnipresent in the 19th century, not only for the parodical load that characterises it, but for the accepted power that exaggeration, distortion and joke hold in the interpretation of reality. From Huysmans to Gide, from Lorrain to Gourmont, from Dumur to Mauclair, Mirbeau or Ceard, the writer's novel makes caricature and the devaluation a guarantee of the authenticity of the fictional self-projection.