Action et réaction, vie et aventures d’un couple (revised edition of the Librairie du XXIe siècle, Seuil 1999) (translated as Action and Reaction: the Life and Adventures of a Couple), composed of a series of studies written over a quarter of a century (1975-1999) is of the order, according to Starobinski (who, after quoting Auerbach, mentions Breal and Benveniste) of an « enlarged semantic history ». Venturing in the direction of the history of science (from Newton to Freud) or of the history of ideas (political, for example), putting to the test the distinctions between various cultural fields, Starobinski’s book remains nonetheless a great work of literary criticism regarding rereading, among many others, Balzac or Diderot.