Chanter le cercle de vie, conter le cycle saisonnier : Camille Lemonnier et ses "Noëls flamands" (1887)

The aim of the paper is to analyse the tales in the Christmas-themed pieces by Camille Lemonnier ("Flemish Christmas Carols", 1887) from the point of view of the poetics of change, recurrence and circularity, actualised, in this case, in ways of inhabiting festival and/or winter space-time. This idea corroborates the data of primary importance in Lemonnier’s literary project of Christmas carols ('noëls'). Namely, the intimate and familiar aspect of Flanders with its cheerful rusticity, and of the Flemings with their tender, somewhat naive spirit, but very powerful in its reassuring simplicity. In addition to the issues raised above, the paper seeks to clarify the status of stories from the literary genre of 'noëls' in Lemonnier’s literary creation, which combines "intimacy" and "colour" with "naturalism" and Belgian "modernity".