"Une espèce d’ouvrage cosmopolite". Variations énonciatives dans les articles encyclopédiques des Lumières, de Chambers à l’Encyclopédie

Abstract

By inventing the encyclopedic dictionary, the Age of Enlightenment gave rise to a new discourse entity: the encyclopedic article. How is scholarly discourse expressed across lexical fragmentation? Between Chambers, who is the sole author of his Cyclopedia (2 volumes, 1728) and the Encyclopédie (17 volumes of articles, 1751-1765; 11 volumes of illustrations, 1762-1772), achieved by "une société de gens de lettres" whose contributions were coordinated by Diderot et D'Alembert, the writing and editorial processes behind these first encyclopedic endeavors undergo deep changes. Through representative sample studies, the present article attempts to measure the impact of such changes on the way in which encyclopedic discourse manifests itself within the articles through markers signaling its enunciation.