The use of space in three stories by Marcel Schwob: towards the fantastic

Despite the difficulties that may arise when we try to define the fantastic, it is possible to adopt a specific theoretical point of view enabling us to mobilise this genre. Once such a position was adopted, we tried, through this study, to analyse how Marcel Schwob uses space in three of his tales: "Le Roi au masque d'or", "Les Embaumeuses" and "Pays bleu", to create what could be called "fantastic effects ". Those spaces have been observed through the theory of Roman Ingarden, a polish phenomenologist, which helped us to estimate how much they can be modulated in order to create different reading effects.

Keywords: mental space; fantastic; fantastic effects; vagueness; Marcel Schwob; Roman Ingarden; phenomenology