Abstract

This thesis is about Georges Rodenbach's photographic novel Bruges-la-Morte. Examining the type of use that the novel makes of textual and iconic media, it proposes an analysis of the effects of its hybrid form using an approach based on the theories of reading. The first chapter deals with the elements of the work that distance it from the standard novel of the late nineteenth century with respect to the generic positioning, typography and use of photography in a literary work. The second chapter leads a double analysis of the textual and iconic reading effects in the novel and shows how its fragmentary form makes the reader interact actively with text and images and renews all conventional reading pragmatics.