ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the relevant conditions in which Nerval decided to publish his book, what it represented in his writing career and what it meant or did not mean in relation to his political stance at the time, particularly in the context of one of its two subtitles. Factual contextualization and thematic interpretation eventually converge. Interpreting a text as perceptibly unified and self-indicating may incline one's reading to highlight a certain amount of textual narcissism: but this is a valid counterbalance to the 'self-blindness' fostered by the opposite, centrifugal type of reading. Reading Nerval's interpretations of his sources may indeed encourage us in the conviction that literary materials can seem to respond to each other irrespective of the seductive ordering-principles of chronology and canonical literary value. One of the contemporary critical assessments in which Les Illuminés found a place, that of Paulin Limayrac, takes a broader view of Nerval's work, paralleling his increasingly voluminous appearances in print.
